Romantic fantasy drama starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins. Media tycoon William Parrish has lived a rich life in every sense, but fears that his days are numbered. He is offered a temporary reprieve, however, when Death takes over the body of an attractive young man and decides to spend some quality time on Earth. The stranger is drawn to Parrish's daughter, Susan, but she's puzzled by his failure to recognise her from an earlier meeting.
Lightning strikes in an elegant and rather meditative way in this extraordinary fantasy drama, in which a beautifully packaged messenger of death (Brad Pitt, as Joe Black) does a deal with ailing and hugely successful businessman Bill (Anthony Hopkins) ahead of the latter's all-out 65th birthday party. Joe informs Bill of his impending doom but offers him a short stay of execution in exchange for lessons in how to be a human. Joe then falls in love with Bill's daughter (Claire Forlani), who mistakes Joe (Death) for the man she'd met briefly and fallen for, unaware of his fatal run-in with a car shortly thereafter, with Death then taking over his body. Director Martin Brest's immaculately measured and absorbing remake of Mitchell Leisen's 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday is both long and economical, slow but never dragging, and eschews sentimentality while locating a profound depth of feeling in the most subtle of ways. This is Hollywood at the crossroads of glossy and classy, with Hopkins at the peak of his powers and Pitt at his most transcendent.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Joe Black / Young man in coffee shop | Brad Pitt |
| William Parrish | Anthony Hopkins |
| Susan Parrish | Claire Forlani |
| Drew | Jake Weber |
| Allison | Marcia Gay Harden |
| Quince | Jeffrey Tambor |
| Eddie Sloane | David S Howard |
| Jamaican woman | Lois Kelly-Miller |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Martin Brest |
