Published November 19, 2023
Those aren’t my words in the headline, but they could be. And they have been, if not verbatim. I’ve lived them, which is why it was delightfully bittersweet to hear Albert Brooks say them.
Rob Reiner’s documentary about Brooks, “Defending My Life,” just surfaced on Max, the platform formerly known as HBO Max. I watched it immediately upon discovering it. The only delay owed to confusion because I thought someone had mistitled Brooks’ “Defending Your Life” from 1991. Once I figured out what was going, I said, “Oh, of course. Well done.”
There’s always been, it has seemed to me, a bit of Albert Brooks in me. He typically plays a role that features one or more relatable traits or circumstances. I suspect that’s part of his appeal, even as his career started and largely happened off the beaten path. His work reflects parts of us we need to laugh about as we grapple with them.
Another phase of defending
“Defending My Life” is a conversation between Brooks and Reiner, his lifelong friend, as they sit in an otherwise empty restaurant and revisit Brooks’ life and career. No spoilers here, but a content warning about the way Brooks’ father died. Brooks and Reiner discuss it in detail, and it’s a powerful story I didn’t recall knowing. I’ll be thinking about it for some time.
Near the end of the documentary, Brooks observes that during this conversation he’s been defending his life, and that throughout his life, he’s been defending his life, and that it never ends. It just enters another phase of defending.
I had a very famous agent, and he said to me, ‘I don’t know why you always take the hard road.’ And my answer was, ‘You think I see two roads, and I don’t. If there was an easy road, I’d have a house there.’ I said, ‘What do you think, I get up, I can’t wait for the goddamn trouble I’m gonna get into?’ I said, ‘I see one road.’ ”
That’s it. That’s the point. He was speaking for me.
I am tired of so many things. As a trans woman, and just as a person, I’m tired of having to defend my life. My road is tiring, but it’s my road, and I finally learned how to walk it. I have looked down so many roads that I’ve lost count of them. Even then, ultimately I see one road. If that’s confusing and seemingly contradictory, welcome to my world.
It was good to hear someone else say it, and doubly good that it was Albert Brooks, who makes me think as much as he makes me laugh.
Photo of a person walking by John Gomez via Shutterstock.