Plot

A TV movie adapted from Mitch Albom's best-selling novel of the same name, THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN stars Jon Voight (MIDNIGHT COWBOY, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE) as Eddie, whose 83rd birthday marks the movie's opening. An impassive man of few words and a self-effacing modesty, Eddie's lifelong employment as the maintennance man at the Ruby Pier amusement park has endowed him with a stoicism puncuated by flashes of kindness. Over the years, he has grown to accept a vague disappointment in his life. But Eddie's 83rd birthday also marks his death, as he is injured while trying to save a young girl; we are then treated to Eddie's experiences in the afterlife, where he is greeted by five people whose lives were intertwined with his in more or less unexpected ways. Though at times saccharine and preachy, this is a moving tale of a man who discovers the true meaning of his life, as he looks back on it with the enhanced perspective of death.