Mitch Albom's The 5 People You Meet In Heaven

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This movie will be on Sunday night on ABC at 8:00 p.m. starring Jon Voight.

An elderly maintenance worker dies and awakens in heaven, where strangers and loved ones take him on a journey back through his life. Based on the book by Mitch Albom.

Cast: Jon Voight, Ellen Burstyn, Jeff Daniels, Michael Imperioli, Callum Keith Rennie, Rebecca Jenkins, Dagmara Dominczyk, Steve Grayhm .
Director(s): Lloyd Kramer.

BOOK SUMMARY
Amazon.com
Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie's world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie's birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie's own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.
Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom's telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It's A Wonderful Life. --Patrick O'Kelley




Good Morning America asked today: What do you think heaven will be like? Now if you do not believe in heaven and hell, that's fine. Just refrain from answering the question.