Product Details

• Actors: Michael Keaton, Nicole Kidman, Bradley Whitford, Queen Latifah, Michael Constantine
• Directors: Bruce Joel Rubin
• Writers: Bruce Joel Rubin
• Producers: Bruce Joel Rubin, Gil Netter, Hunt Lowry, Jerry Zucker, Kathryn J. McDermott
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Columbia Pictures
• VHS Release Date: April 23, 1996
• Run Time: 117 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0800129784
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,491 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (author of the fanciful Ghost) made his directorial debut with this more serious confrontation with the realities of death. Michael Keaton plays an advertising executive who learns he is dying even as his wife (Nicole Kidman) is pregnant. The film beautifully focuses on his anger over everything: the unfinished business of his life and the probability he'll never meet his child. The late Dr. Haing S. Ngor (The Killing Fields) is terrific as a doctor who helps Keaton's character to recognize the corrosiveness of his rage and to let go. The film is a heartbreaker but truly cathartic for anyone who has felt the blunt pain of losing someone close. Keaton is outstanding. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker

Bruce Joel Rubin's first film as a director is the story of a fortyish man named Bob Jones (Michael Keaton) who, upon learning that he has inoperable cancer, videotapes a kind of autobiography to immortalize himself for his unborn child. For Rubin, the screenwriter of "Ghost" and "Jacob's Ladder," mortality has turned out to be great shtick. He has identified a new, gigantic, and readily exploitable movie market: people who know that they're going to die (sooner or later) and feel pretty lousy about it. This picture-released by Columbia, which is owned by Sony-ultimately plays like a long, cruel infomercial for camcorders. Its stated moral is, in the hero's words: "Dying is a really hard way to learn about living." Receiving spiritual education from big-budget studio movies is no day at the beach, either. Also with Nicole Kidman, Haing S. Ngor, and Michael Constantine. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Facing the inevitable, January 5, 2005

By 

Scott FS (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: My Life [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully" - Samuel Johnson

Michael Keaton gives an effective and heart-felt performance as Bob Jones, a young, successful PR executive married to a beautiful woman (Nicole Kidman) who is expecting their first child. The bottom falls out of his life when he is diagnosed with a fatal illness, and only given months to live. He is forced to exam his life that he's really just been rushing through. Bob Jones not only has never stopped to smell the roses; he hasn't even noticed that they are there at all.

'My Life' is a realistic portrayl of what must go through one's mind when one is brought up short by such stunning news. Although the topic is certainly depressing, it is something we will all one day face. This is how one man deals with the terribly bad hand he has been dealt. Especially poignant is the fact that not only won't he probably be around to help raise his child, but he might not even make it long enough to see his child born. Heart-wrenching.

In several pivotal scenes, Jones decides to hope for a miracle, and visits an Asian healer (Haing Ngor who starred in 'The Killing Fields') who tells him that he has too much anger and hurt in him. Jones resists the whole notion of exploring how he got to where he is, at least for a while. His anger at his family is one point of anger he must struggle with.

Keaton does an excellent job here. We see flashes of the actor we saw in 'Mr. Mom' and earlier movies, sort of a lovable, good-hearted guy with a funny edge to him. His Bob Jones evolves slowly and realistically from a man who is stunned and angry, to a man determined to let his child know who he is. Ngor also plays the right note as a practioner who can't cure his patient, but perhaps can help him in his last journey.

A potentially maudlin, down-beat subject is handled with just the right amount of empathy and gentleness and with a light touch.

Highly recommended. Very highly recommended if you've had such a scare, are living with a terminal illness, or have had a loved one deal with such issues.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreaking, February 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: My Life [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Bruce Joel Rubin won an Oscar for writing "Ghost" (a film I kinda liked) and has also scribed "Jacob's Ladder" and "Deep Impact". Yet here, in his only directorial feature, he paints a picture of inner turmoil and redemption so poignant that you'll bawl your eyes out (like I did). Released the same year as the hyped-up Tom Hanks AIDS drama "Philadelphia", "My Life" proves to be a much better film in that instead of presenting a stereotype and asking us to sympathize with him because it was revolutionary according to Hollywood standards, Rubin takes a theme which is relatively familiar to cinema, adds the twist of the man videotaping his own life, and asks us to share the psychological pain the man is going through. I do not believe I have ever seen Michael Keaton in a better role than this; the camera lingers on his face through many shots, such as one where he has just viewed a colleague's cold-hearted description of him, and another where he's staring into a mirror. There's a wiseacre brilliance to Keaton's acting style, and one thing I've noticed about him through the years is how he plays devoted father-types: "Mr. Mom", "One Good Cop", "Multiplicity". None of these movies showcase Keaton's talent of emotional hurt beneath a wisecracking exterior like "My Life" does, however, and perhaps that's just as well. The film proceeds through his cancer by steps: denial, anger, acceptance, etc. And yet the film doesn't feel like an AA meeting. The late, great Haing S. Ngor provides a Zen type of philosophy as a faith healer, and his advice to Keaton in the movie leads to a subplot involving Keaton's blue-collar parents that gives the film an additional layer of meaning. The Ukranian wedding and reception reminded me of "The Deer Hunter" in the fact that the culture of the characters define who they are and are given greater force in regards to the final tragedy. The most moving aspect of the film involves Keaton's search for forgiveness from his father, who is shown in the film as a chain-smoker perhaps as an ironic twist that his son is the one with the cancer. This motif is continued during the final ten minutes as the father flicks his lighter on and off while his son lie dying in the next room, unable to smoke a cigarette. This film received mixed reviews from film critics when it was first released (compared to the raving they did for "Philadelphia"), yet as time moves on, I believe this film will move more people in the end than Hanks'. The final realization of the backyard circus near the end of the film is one of the most moving examples of the "Good things happen to those who wait" virtues that I've ever seen captured on film, and the utter inevitability of the father-son reconciliation is held back for just so long and so perfectly understated that it ranks with "Field of Dreams" as a testament to the final fruits of fatherhood. "My Life" also includes a beautiful score by John Barry, the same man who wrote the music for "Born Free", "Out of Africa", "Dances with Wolves", and "Cry the Beloved Country". His music for this film ranks among his best and is regularly featured on news shows whenever they want to evoke sentiment. The whole movie has the weight of tragedy over it, but it's exhilarating that the film can make you care so much. The film's example of a loving husband-and-wife is perfectly illustrated in the shot where Keaton and Nicole Kidman gently dance together in the middle of an amusement park as people walk by worried about their own minute problems. This is a beautiful movie.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Art imitating life, June 26, 2008

By 

Charles M. Strnad "Washed up jock" (Tulsa, OK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: My Life (DVD)

I am a blood/cancer specialist (for 25 years), and have always been put-off by most of Hollywood's attempts to portray medical-related drama on the big screen. Scores of such attempts have always seemed to me to be overly-forced efforts to wring some emotional impact from the audience, by over-done acting and grandiose "life-and-death" scenes, as if everything that happens in medicine is so different from everyday life. The simple, daily human drama that I have been priviledged to witness in my work has always struck me as something that would make a much better movie than anything Hollywood has done.
"My Life" , in my opinion, is one bright, shining exception to the rule. I saw this film when it first came out in the theatres, and just recently bought a DVD for home use- and after watching it again just last night, felt compelled to offer this review.

The story line is that of a young man (Keaton) diagnosed with incurable kidney cancer, spread to his lungs. He's a work-a-holic executive type in Los Angeles, with his wife (Kidman) pregnant with their first child. While he actively seeks out all conventional medical therapies for his disease, and continues to work (and keep his diagnosis from friends and even his own family), the disease progresses- and early on he is racked with anger and denial, aggravated by his emotional and physical estrangement from his family back in Detroit. He begins to video-tape himself, with practical (and frequently both hilarious and insightful) suggestions for living life, in order that his newborn child will know who his/her father was- hence the "My Life" title. The stages of disease progression are shown unsparingly and in a very matter-of-fact way, and for once in the movies, we see a patient who actually doesn't get MORE attractive, as he is dying. At the insistence of his wife, Keaton reluctantly begins to see a Chinese "faith-healer", and the several scenes involved with this are also rather insightful, as regards what true healing is all about.

But the impact of this movie goes well beyond the compelling and well-written plot.

First and foremost, this movie more than any other seems believable, seems real.....in no small part due to the exceptional screenwriting and acting. Though the two leads (Michael Keaton and Nichole Kidman) are clearly established, big-time movie stars, one never gets the feeling that you are watching big-time movie stars acting out a part: they say things and do things that real people do, when confronting a serious illness, and the imminent prospect of one's mortality. Bravo to the screenwriters for giving these exceptional actors believable things to say, and bravo to the actors for conveying the incredible emotions that they do, both through their words and their body language. In most movies where there are a lot of "tear-jerking" scenes I get ultimately uncomfotable, but not here. Every scene in this movie, from riotous laughter to the deepest sorrow, rings absolutely true. I know, because I see and hear the same from things I am witness to personally every day.

But there's more to this movie than just the medical story- it's also a powerful story of forgiveness, and also an almost Wordsworthian tribute to the lost innocence of childhood. The flashback scenes of Keaton revisiting the home of his childhood touches so many familiar buttons, that anyone who has done the same in their life will surely be moved to tears- and tears mixed with sadness, longing, and even joy. As Wordsworth wrote: "Though nothing can bring back the hour.....of splendour in the grass....of glory in the flower....we will grieve not, rather find.....strength in what remains behind." The scenes in this movie about Keaton's childhood have this wonderful, longing, and lyrical quality- never melodramatic or overly-sentimental either- another tribute to the filmakers.
The Chinese "faith-healer" in the movie seemed to me an allegorical figure: a means to convey the ultimate truth about serious illness and death- that real healing is not of the body, but of the mind. We all die physically one day, but worse than this is the mental death we so often die daily, through the diseases of anger, denial, selfishness, apathy, and fear.

The musical score (by John Barry) adds to every scene, and is among the more poignant and lyrical soundtracks I've ever heard in a movie. I own a copy of the soundtrack, and by itself it is a moving work of art.

I give this movie 5 stars, without reservation. If you've never seen it, and even if you don't go for "medical dramas", see this one. You won't regret it.