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The Five People You Meet in Heaven

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1 star:		(7)

 

 

"This is a story of a man named Eddie who was shown the secret of heaven: that each life affects the other, and the other affects the next. The world is full of stories, but the stories are all one." - The Five People You Meet In Heaven DVD

A critical, abusive, alcoholic father. The nightmares--and a physical wound--courtesy of war. Infertility. A beloved wife struck down with a neurological disease. Evaporating dreams of being an engineer, replaced with a life-long job as a theme park maintenance man.

Eddie feels like a loser. He was a nobody-his alcoholic father made sure of that. Working at the theme park Ruby's Pier, like his father before him, is how Eddie died and went to heaven.

Author Mitch Albom wrote the script for the made-for-TV movie The Five People You Meet In Heaven, which is based on his bestselling book. The theme of this story is that no life is a waste, no matter how seemingly insignificant-and that there are no random acts, because all are connected.

The profound but simple truths in this poignant story by Albom reflect the themes that all is one, there are no random acts, and that peace, learning and growth face us on the Other Side.

On a sunny day at Ruby's Pier, a cable system breaks down on an amusement ride, and Eddie, played by veteran actor Jon Voight, tries to save a girl from death. He feels small hands in his as he tries to pull her to safety.

"When Eddie died, he felt no pain. He experienced calm-as if every pain he experienced on Earth was washed away."

In heaven, Eddie is first met by a man who used to be a part of Ruby Pier's freak show-a man tinted blue by a chemical tincture he drank as a child. The man of blue (brilliantly played by Jeff Daniels) tells Eddie that he will meet five people in heaven, and each will share things which will be a lesson for Eddie. The part that the Blue Man played in Eddie's life was unknown until Eddie arrives in heaven: as a small boy, Eddie was playing ball in the street, and the Blue Man, driving down the same street, swerved to miss him. The Blue Man ended up dying of a heart attack, and Eddie was unaware of his part in the story.

When the Blue Man shared what happen, Eddie felt badly-that the accident wasn't fair, and that it should have been him that died. The blue man replies: "There is no fair in life and death. If it were, no good men would die young." Eddie assumes that he will now pay for his "sin" and be judged. The Blue Man dismisses this idea, almost with amusement: "No, no, no.", he says, shaking his head. In heaven, there is no judgment, but rather an opportunity to examine our lives-who we touched, the choices we made, and the consequences of those choices.

Eddie is then visited by four more people, in their own unique heaven. Forgiveness is another theme of the story, and the character of Ruby tells Eddie: "Hatred is a curved blade. The harm we do to others is harm we do to ourselves...no one is born with anger. It builds up over time, with the things we don't say and the things we bury. When we die, the soul is freed of it-free to see the truth."

The process that Eddie goes through when he dies is consistent with the case studies featured in the books Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls by hypnotherapist Dr. Michael Newton. No angry God awaits us at the gates of death, but instead, we are met with kind, loving guides and souls-eventually being ushered into a personally designed `curriculum' for our soul's growth and edification. When Eddie meets his former military captain in his personal heaven the captain says to him: "Time isn't what you think it is, kid. Neither is dying." Also consistent with between-life regression case histories is the ability for souls to change shape (like Eddie's wife did when he asked her to become "old" again), as well as the ability to "choose" your heaven.

The Five People You Meet In Heaven is a story of redemption and personal meaning, as Eddie finally realizes that everything- even difficulties, disappointments, and deaths-happen for a reason. We're also reminded that "all endings are beginnings. We just don't know it at the time..."

Throughout the story, Eddie calls himself a loser, feeling that he did not accomplish anything with his life (like going to engineering school as he planned). He felt alone, and without anything to show for his life. However, at the end of meeting the five people from his life on the Other Side, Eddie is shown the results of his everyday, "mundane" work as an amusement park maintenance man: a sea of people of every age, race, and walk of life that were kept safe over the years by his diligence:

"All the accidents he prevented, all the people he kept safe-their children, and their children's children-are because of the things he did day after day."

The human search for a sense of meaning and purpose to life is a deep one. Perhaps the first thoughts of the first human were "Who am I? Why am I here?" We're still asking these questions--and desperately looking for the answer.

Living in an increasingly complex and stressful era, it's tempting to think that the mundane is meaningless and that life is a random crapshoot. I was deeply moved by this story, reminded that no interpersonal interaction is by chance, and that every cruel, painful, or disappointing situation serves a higher purpose that will someday be explained. The Five People You Meet In Heaven shows that, truly, no life is a "waste", and no life is insignificant. My story is a part of your story, because all of us are connected in the web of life.

Once in awhile, a movie goes beyond entertainment to make us better for having witnessed it. This is one of those.

Eddie's life has been one of misery, regret, and failure. Then he dies, and is forced to face his demons. A touching work of such love and beauty that it may well leave you sobbing.

Mitch Ablom's enormous bestseller is given the tv movie treatment in this moving but simplistic tale. Oscar winner Jon Voight stars as Eddie, an aging mechanic at the Ruby Pier amusement park. With his bum leg and his slow demeanor, we can tell Eddie's had a hard life. But on this fateful day, Eddie will die in a tragic accident while trying to save a little girl. Eddie finds himself in what appears to be heaven and discovers that there are five people he will meet who will show him how meaningful his life really was.
A thematic comparison to IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE can't be avoided, and the movie plays on that. Voight is very good as Eddie, a man who feels his life is worthless and is shown just what an impact he had. Jeff Daniels is the Blue Man, a "freak" at the carnival; Michael Imperioli is especially good as the Captain who served with Eddie in the war; Ellen Burstyn who also narrates the film is Ruby, whose husband built the park and named it after her; Dagmara Dominiczyk is Marguerite, Eddie's late wife; and the fifth is a little Filipino girl who holds a deep secret in Eddie's past.
The movie austere, sincere and touching..Steven Grayhm as young Eddie is superb. The sets are realistic and the direction good. Well done, but not superlative.

This is a wonderful film. In many ways it reminds me of the play Our Town, which is also set in the afterlife of one of the characters. While Our Town generally uses an almost empty stage with a ladder or a chair as setting, the settings of the Five People You Met in Heaven are incredible and imaginatively done. The World War II Pacific theater setting captured the essence of the experience without going over the top. It was a case of "less is more." In the instance of the early 20th century amusement park, the setting was like a memory distilled from childhood with everything more vivid than reality but reduced to essentials. The park was without the holiday crowd, the grounds were free of debris, a place in time designed by the shorthand of the mind.

The plot is created through a string of vignettes interlaced with flash backs relating the life stories of the characters in relation to that of the central character. Flashbacks introduce important information about encounters without making the story itself seem choppy. This is amazing since they occur with such regularity and in such measure, that it is almost only the engagement of the viewer with the plot that prevents confusion over which story is flashback and which is central theme.

Of all the characters, I think I enjoyed the Blue Man the most. He seemed menacing at first and I almost wondered what evil deed he had done. His story made me realize how often we judge others by their appearance and their motives by our own fear of the unknown. One thinks of the ever increasing numbers of individuals we encounter on our streets who come from other cultures, ones that seem just as mysterious and suspicious as the Blue Man. When we react to them negatively we might in fact be adding more misery to a life that has sustained more than its fair share of it.

The character I found least engaging but most instructive was the Father. The isolation of the man continued even into death. He looked like a person who had been knocked senseless. Unable to pull himself from his own disappointments, he was as unable to respond to his son's needs after death as he had been in life. He was a soul kept "safe," by a character who had very little to do with the actual story. It was she who explained the meaning of his life with relation to the central character not he. It would appear he'd traveled through life as an anomaly and continued to be one after death.

An interesting and moving story.

It isn't often that the movie version of a good book is as good as the book itself, but this is one time it actually happened. I thought the book was profound on a level that Tuesdays with Morrie never reached. Jon Voigt is a superb actor, and he is outstanding in 5 People. The rest of the cast is excellent as well. While some people may regard the "message" as trite or schlocky, this powerful dramatization of the fact that our lives are all interlocked is something we need to be reminded of often.
It also demonstrates the futility of excessive guilt, and the fact that one never knows the complete story in any given situation. And does so without resorting to preaching or mawkishness. Read the book or watch the DVD- the impact is the same.

"..each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one." These words are uttered by Ellen Burstyn at the end of this Hallmark movie version of that persistent little best seller by Mitch Albom THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN. And that about sums up the content of this simplistic story of how all of us are connected, that each of our lives is significant even if not apparent while being lived.

Mitch Albom serves a purpose as a writer. He produces small short stories as books that are quick reads, have a dollop of 'feel good' philosophy, and provides an entry to folks who may not ordinarily read books as part of their pastimes. And there is considerable merit to that. From the legions who have read his 'Tuesdays with Morrie' and 'Five People You Meet in Heaven' it is fairly obvious that there is a public out there who is hungry for some homespun faith: the atmosphere around the globe is threatening enough to our psyches that we do need some spiritual nurturing. And if Albom provides that, I think that is a step in the right direction.

Great writing here? No. The screenplay is by Albom and as worked by director Lloyd Kramer we are given almost two and a half hours of this story that doesn't take that long to read in book form. But in many ways this drawn out presentation helps make a better story rather than the quick preach of the book. Eddie (John Voight + Callahan Brebner + Steven Grayhm) is a maintenance man for a seaside boardwalk Ruby's Pier where he has spent his entire life (with the exception of a tour of duty in the battlefields of WW II) feeling like he is trapped into a thankless life, filled with mistakes and regrets. His sole concern is for the safety of the rides in the amusement park: the story begins with his death due to a faulty ride in which he attempts to intervene at the 13th hour to save a young girl's life.

Being dead, he enters 'heaven' which just happens to be a cleaned up Ruby's Pier. He meets five folk who each teach him lessons about his life - lessons that are accompanied by flashbacks to significant moments, events, and memories. These five people are enacted by Jeff Daniels, Michael Imperioli, Ellen Burstyn, Dagmara Dominczyk and Nicaela & Shelbie Weigel and it is through their graces that Albom's secrets are transmitted to Eddie.

Not a complex plot, not a complex movie, but one done with enough color and skill to warrant its Hallmark seal of approval. And that is really OK. Just don't expect depth. Grady Harp, March 05

In this spritual movie starring Jon Voight along with a great supporting cast including Jeff Daniel and Ellen Burstyn, has some very touching and wonderful messages about the journey between death and the afterlife. It's rather elaborate plotline is not easy to follow and it's somewhat slow-paced, so it really is a film that needs some thinking involved. It's not like Robin William's What Dreams May Come, it doesn't intend to please with visuals and conventional movie magics, but it tried to make Jon Voight(Eddie Maintenance)'s journey to be powerful morally, spiritually, and emotionally.

Eddie is a maintenance worker at an amusement park called Ruby Pier, and one day he died when he got struck by one of the rides that had broken down. During his transition from Earth to Heaven, he meets five people, one at a time. Every one of the five people has something to teach him about some of the most significant events in his lifetime. The first person is the Blue Man played by Jeff Daniel, who was a freak at the Pier, and he had been involved with Eddie when he was living on Earth. The second person he meets is a fellow soldier. The third is the owner of the pier played by Ellen Burstyn. The fourth is his beloved departed wife, and the last is a girl who was his victim.

The five people showed Eddie the truth about his life and what he should understand, forgive, and reconcile with. Basically, everything happened for a reason, and he must come to terms with all the good and bad events of his life before arriving Heaven....

Jon Voight is brilliant in this movie, and he played his role from the age of 80's back to forty something in flasback sequences. He had delivered a multi-layered and moving performance as a man with a life filled with regret and remorse. Jeff Daniel is unrecognizable in heavy makeup, but he was the most striking of the Five People. Ellen Burstyn was good, but she had limited screentime and she did the narration for the film. Canadian veteran actress Rebecca Jenkins(Marion Bridge) played Eddie's mom and was underused in this movie.

The movie has some good visuals and sceneries, but I did find the sound was uneven. I enjoyed this movie, because I can relate to the spirituality aspect of the story.

This DVD I brought for myself thinking probably a movie just myself would enjoy.... Cable vision went out so I put it on... well my family Husband, myself 14 yr old 18yr old and her boyfriend sat and watched the whole thing..... it kept you thinking and a twist at the end..... well maybe not a twist but not what any of us expected.... the girls all were teary eyed at end....
Its a movie about life being meaningful and about forgiveness.... guess the bad reviews like more gory films... this is definately not that but definately worth watching....

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is at times a phantasmagorical tale of Eddie's life. During the two hours of completely captivating storytelling, we journey into the mind of a man who thought his life was a pointless series of daily tasks as a maintenance man.

When he dies suddenly after attempting to save a child's life, he endures a review of his life, complete with flashbacks and a few guilt trips. The startling realities of how things actually occurred as opposed to how Eddie viewed his life at the time makes this a movie filled with constant surprises and insightful viewpoints.

The transitions between the scenes are often inspired and at times the change in volume can be a little startling. As you strain to hear the Blue Man from Algeria's voice at the Ruby Pier, you may want to keep the remote handy to turn down the volume during the war scenes. The violence in this movie is brief, but does present a troubling depiction of heaven if you think Eddie is in heaven. Give this movie time to unfold and you will love the underwater images and the final revelations.

The tale is woven so well, you never really know what will happen next and it almost becomes a guessing game to find out who Eddie will talk to next. In the tradition of movies in the past, Eddie is illuminated by revisiting his past on numerous occasions.

The mood is thoughtful and the main message seems to be about how our lives are inextricably woven together, even when we don't even realize our influence.

~The Rebecca Review

A friend of mine lent me the book last month and I was truly amazed at the instant attention that grabbed me away into the life of these people. I highly recommend the book before the movie as your mind will take you places even higher than the movie will. Exercise your mind, read the book.