Meet Joe Black
After catching parts of it here and there over the years (my wife loves it and watches it whenever it comes on), I finally got to see it from beginning to end. The one thing that struck me was how damned funny it was. It's not a comedy, it's certainly a drama, a character study, and a few other things, but knowing all the circumstances and the characters, and what they know and don't know, somehow made a lot of the scenes quite amazing. Nearly every line, it seemed, carried a double meaning because we knew who Joe was and what he meant, and how it was (mis)interpreted by everyone else. Or everyone except for Parrish, who knew Joe's secret. It's hard to explain if you've never seen it. But all the dramatic irony, ironically, made the movie very funny. I was constantly laughing out loud at how cleverly written it was.
The story itself was a bit less interesting to me, and I admit to losing focus a few times over the movie's three-hour length, but that's mostly because I was tired; it was still quite good. Also, Claire Forlani is amazing as Parrish's (Anthony Hopkins) younger daughter and Joe's love interest, such as it is. Actually, all the casting is excellent.
A much better film than I'd expected, and much better than I'd thought, based on what I'd seen previously. Four spoonfuls of peanut butter out of five. Would not watch again, but would sit and watch some if caught on cable, and would enjoy more now, knowing all the context.