Chased by discontent, His Life Became a Nightmare.
Based upon a best-selling novel by Mitch Albom, Producers Oprah Winfrey and Kate Forte bring the popular story to film about the broken Charles (Chic) Benneto (Michael Imperioli) who fell into absolute despair after his mother, Posey (Ellen Burstyn) passed away unexpectedly.
The film alludes to the story being written by Charles' daughter from the beginning of the film, but doesn't completely make this clear until the end of the film. The so-called straw the broke the camel's back in his despair came when he found that he wasn't invited to his own daughter's wedding. This sent him on a mission of self-pity which leads him very close to suicide.
Anyone could wish they had one more chance to have closure with one or more of their dearly departed, however, we don't usually ever have that opportunity on this side of life. The film depicts Charles as a disappointed former baseball professional who has fallen upon hard times through a series of unfortunate events, a broken family, and alcoholism. Charles plans to end his life, but somehow, right before he is about to go through with it, he is visited by his dead mother who spends the day telling him many things he always wished he had forced himself to ask others about and finally discovers the secret about his parent's divorce.
Much time within the film is spent jumping between the unexpected, ghostly visit from his mother and flashbacks in time when he was growing up and felt so much anger, isolation, and lack of love from his estranged mother and absent father. Many times within the film, you feel that Charles should show some kind of emotion, however, numbness or lack of emotion usually depicts his true feelings, since it was never explained to him why his father had departed from the family and remained outside of his life. This truly weighed heavily on Charles when his father only appeared to participate in viewing a few games that he played during his best ball-playing years.
I found it somewhat dismayed that the film doesn't clarify what happened to his father toward the end, although the visit from his mother, Posey, actually came 9 years after her passing.
A great deal of agonizing work was poured out with the direction coming from Lloyd Kramer with many shots possibly being shot from different angles and an ingenius film editing job by Igor Kovalik and Director of Photography by Tami Reiker. Much time was spent in film production to build a vignette of Charles' world as a youngster during the early-to-late 50s and up through the 60s during college years. Also, great attention was paid to casting actors in time to play the young, younger, and older versions of every character who needed to make the film work.
Oh my, I really can't say good enough things about this film, yet everyone needs to see it once, and especially if you have had many family members pass recently.
I'll give this a 4/5 for it's heart-warming drama and a totally powerful message of grace to someone who is truly desperate and driven to destruction.
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