The Five People You Meet In Heaven (2004)

Due to the success of Mitch Albom's books. It was a dream that they would turn into movies.Being that Tuesdays With Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven are two of my favorite books, I was rather excited that they turned into movies. Unfortunately, I have not seen Tuesdays With Morrie (1999).Being that The Five People You Meet in Heaven is one of my favorite books, I was a little disappointed, but I still really liked the movie.The movie is a TV Movie, so it doesn't have the great budget and quality it deserves. But the cinematography is great.Five People is about how each person we meet, though appearing insignificant, are part of the vast web of interconnection that affects our life. Jon Voight plays Eddie, an 83-year old mechanic who has worked at the Ruby Pier Amusement Park all his life except for a stint in the army during World War II. The first thing we learn about Eddie is that he is dead, killed in a roller coaster accident while trying to save a little girl.The next thing we find out is that, in heaven, Eddie will meet and talk with five people who were the most influential in his life, people Eddie would probably not think of first, but whose influence becomes slowly and painstakingly revealed. As he re-experiences traumatic events from the past, it soon becomes clear that what they share with him allows him to complete and illuminate the past. Eddie meets "The Blue Man" (Jeff Daniels), part of the sideshow at the park, his Army captain (Michael Imperioli), his wife Marguerite (Dagmara Dominczyk) who died after only a few years of marriage, the wife of the original owner of the Ruby Pier (Ellen Burstyn), and a little Filipino girl named Tala (Nicaela and Shelbie Weigel).The Five People You Meet in Heaven is well worth the watch.

This movie was a pleasant surprise. The director managed to include all that was necessary to tell the story from beginning to end, yet keep it short and sweet.Most importantly, the movie retained the pleasant, almost eerie feeling of Albom's book. Nothing syrupy: it's shown from Eddie's viewpoint.Good, understated performances from actors that understood the message and the meaning of it all, ensemble-style. Viewer may not recognize his or her favorite stars in this one.Five People is worth the purchase, because this film is for sharing and for viewing over and over again. In fact, it will be necessary to watch more than once to catch all the details.

This movie fails on so many levels. First, it is not at all as advertised. The description claimed it was a story about a man (Eddie) dying and meeting in Heaven five people who show him how he affected their lives. There is an implication it is uplifting. This is not true. Instead it is a depressing feel-bad movie about a man who dies and meets in Heaven five people who preach at him and show him their own deaths, and in two notable cases, how Eddie caused those deaths. The guy goes through the movie feeling worse and worse about himself until in the last minute the movie does a complete turnaround and you get about 5 seconds of "feel-good" instead of the feel-bad, but it's contrived and absurd. For the most part, this movie is an obnoxious, preachy guilt trip. It is also horrifically overly sentimental and smug in its sentimentality. You can tell the idiot who wrote the book was pretty much demanding a fistful of awards for his pretentious drek.The stories are ridiculous and contrived. They make more sense as parodies of bad Lifetime movie plots and reading reviews of it I see that it was, indeed, made for TV. At least that means no one actually spent money on gas or theater tickets for it. I kind of hate the word bathos, but this is one case where it is the only word that makes any sense as a description. And there are a couple of scenes that were clearly designed as sucker punches.The editing is choppy, especially the sound. I don't think this was done for effect, as it doesn't make sense that way. The art direction is acceptable, as are the costumes and sets. However the director doesn't really make very good use of the carnival/amusement park setting.The acting is mostly horrible, but given the bad script that may have been somewhat inescapable. On the plus side, Jeff Daniels and Callum Keith Rennie both do a fairly creditable job in a very small role and a rather important role respectively. However, Daniels's character does join the ranks of the arrogant and preachy at times. Rennie's, on the other hand, is a jerk but at least he plays the part fairly cleanly. On the very bad side, Jon Voight's pathetic, miserable Eddie makes no sense whatsoever. There is a complete disconnect between the character and the events of his life. And the scene where he plays Eddie forgiving his father made me cringe with extreme embarrassment for him. It should have been sweet and touching. Instead it is laughable. Then on the extremely horrible side we have Ellen Burnstyn. I do not think I have ever been quite so disappointed in an actress. She's usually wonderful, but in this turkey she's completely foul. She comes off as smug, arrogant and patronizing. Her narration is like nails scratching a chalkboard.The acting is mostly awful, the script is something the writer should be horribly ashamed of, and the advertising for it is flat out false and misleading. I usually like uplifting movies, so the awfulness of this thing was that much more disappointing.In summary: Worst movie I've seen in years.

This film is about a man's journey in heaven after he dies. He meets five people in heaven, each teaching him different things that he never knew or understood before.I have read the book and was deeply touched by it. This film stays very true to the book. The film is basically a direct adaptation of the book, translating every single line of the book into audiovisual material. The end result is that there are many dialogs and scenes that simply do not work in the film. I feel that there are so many scenes that can be cut, and so many dialogs that can be omitted in the film. For example, it does not hurt the film at all if the captain does not ask if the army boys kept in touch with each other. Or the interspersed childhood scenes, which if omitted, will make the film flow more seamlessly.This is not to say that the film is not good. It is very good, the sets are meticulously created, the acting is great, and the film is touching. My only complaint is that it is too long. Spending 40 minutes on the second person and another 40 minutes on the third person is simply too long.