My Life

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