In a career that spans more than 45 years,Michael Keatonhas proven time and time again that there is no role or genre that he can’t master. Now 72 years old, the versatile actor became a household name incomedic roleswith memorable turns inNight Shift,Mr. Mom, andBeetlejuice. Asthe 1990srolled around, we began to see a different side of the actor that allowed him to show off his darker and more dramatic side. He tackledhis secondBatmanmovieand also played a mercurial and deadly tenant in the filmPacific HeightsalongsideMatthew ModineandMelanie Griffith. Since then, we have seen him earn an Oscar nomination for a beautifully layered performance as the thoughtful and eccentric lead inBirdmanor(The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). But there is an outlier of a movie that he made in 1993 that doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves.My Lifeis atearjerker that delivers Keaton in the most emotional and physical turn of his career, which has seen him effectively dominate every genre put in front of him.
A terminally ill man prepares for his death.
What Is ‘My Life’ About?
Written, directed, and co-produced byBruce Joel Rubin,My Lifemarked a pronounced sea change for Keaton as an actor. He had fully graduated froman actor who nailed funny, but less meaningful parts, into a performer who could give audiences both light-hearted fare and have you reaching for the Kleenex box with heavy, existential, and life-affirming moments on screen the next. As Bob Jones, Keaton stars oppositeNicole Kidmanas a successful Los Angeles-based executive whose life comes crashing down whenhe discovers that he has a terminal form of cancerthat starts in his kidneys and travels to his brain. On top of the sobering diagnosis, he also discovers that he is going to be a father for the first time, but may not live long enough to meet his child. It is very weighty material that calls on Keaton to tug at your heartstrings while keeping the viewer engaged in the reconciliation that Bob must go through in the various aspects of his life that he thought he would have more time to address. Notably, he needs to think abouthow he wants his unborn son to remember him and salvage a chilly relationship with his immigrant parentsand younger brother, whom he left behind in Detroit because he felt ashamed of his heritage growing up, and thus changed his name and moved far away from them.
Michael Keaton Delivers a Heartbreaking Performance in ‘My Life’
Some of the most heartbreaking moments of Keaton’s portrayal of a man dying as his first child is growing in his wife’s womb arethe emotional video journal entries that he makes for the baby. In 1993, before cell phones, this required some effort. So, when he takes a camera, loads it onto a tripod, and sits down to impart some of the basic advice regarding who he is, where he came from, and the things that sons feel more comfortable talking to their dads about (cars, sex, the best way to enter a room), it will give you all the feelings, and they may be the sad ones. Fair warning: you will well up and perhaps evenshed a few tears during these moments. If you don’t, you are tougher than most!
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At first, he shows the unborn child family videos of his time as a young man in Michigan. As the film moves along and the cancer spreads, Keaton’s messages become more personal and heartfelt. It’s hard to imagine a role that requires more nuance and acting skills. Only an actor as rich and talented as Keaton can bring some levity to the videos withhis effortless charm and wit. Kidman, as his wife Gail, also brings some of themost meaningful work of her careertoMy Life. Going through pregnancy while watching your soul mate wither away is as dramatically demanding as it gets. Gail asks Bob, “Why can’t you open up to me? you’re able to open yourself up to a machine, but you can’t tell me these things!” Watching Bob say “hello and goodbye” to his son via videotape and saying farewell to his living loved ones isthe great actor at his most emotionally and physically vulnerable.
Bob has always resented his family, particularly his dad, for being simple and not trying to shoot for a better life when they came to America. Bob’s real name is Robert Ivanovich, and he shows his disdain for his father early in the film, ostensibly calling him absent and cheap while he broke his back selling scrap metal to put food on the table. He has been carrying this invention of Bob Jones and the detachment from his humble beginnings for decades, and it wears on him as he gets weaker, and life slowly drains from his body. He begins to see things only a dying man can see, and treasure the important things he has ignored. The most important is his fractured relationship with his family members and his dad.Keaton had never really been challenged withthis level of existentialismas a performer before, and inMy Life, he goes a full 12 rounds tussling with what matters in life. He wants his unborn son to have a better understanding too, so he leaves the camera rolling throughout his journey of self-discovery. When Bob’s entire family travels to California to say their goodbyes, he has a lot of time and effort to make up for seeking absolution and granting forgiveness.
The Ending of ‘My Life’ Is One of the Most Beautiful Moments in Michael Keaton’s Career
It is a lucky person who has loved ones surrounding them as they pass away. It shouldn’t be taken for granted, and by the time Bob’s body can’t answer the bell for another round of fighting, Gail, his dad, Bill (Michael Constantine), his mother Rose (Rebecca Schull), younger brother Paul (Bradley Whitford), and his hospice nurse Theresa (Queen Latifah) are all bedside his deathbed to see him off to the final hours. Even though he has kept his illness a secret from every one of them except Gail until his final days, they have a circus brought to Bob’s backyard and are there for him even though he treated them with disdain, arrogance, and disrespect for years. As fortune would have it, Bob does get to see his newborn son just weeks before his death, and the precious moments they spend together are some of the most moving. The juxtaposition of a man about to pass on ushering in a new life begot from him and looking him in the eyes is cinema at its finest. When his dad gently shaves him for the last time, it is another Kleenex moment. These scenes alonemakeMy LifeMichael Keaton’s most underrated movie.
My Lifeis available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
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