Book of Days (2003) (TV)

Director:

Harry Ambrose

Writer:

Susan Rohrer (written by)

Release Date:

31 January 2003 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A grief-struck life insurance salesman rails at God for not stepping in to save his bride; but the tables are turned when a mysterious book is delivered to him, an ancient volume listing names and death dates, dates which are yet to occur. |

Plot Keywords:

Death | Book | Life | God | Insurance

Cast

Wil Wheaton	...	Danny
Maureen Flannigan	...	Frankie
Deborah Raffin	...	Amelia Hartland
Isaac Hayes	...	Jonah
John Reilly	...	Worthington
Pamela Reed	...	Grady
Richard Grieco	...	Finch
Arthur Taxier	...	Rheinholt
Cameron Graham	...	Edgar
Hunter von Leer	...	Mayhew
Hamilton Mitchell	...	Tucker
Michelle Holgate	...	Caroline
Jack Kehler	...	Arty
Lynnette Gaza	...	Decker
Dan O'Connor	...	Dr. Draper

MPAA:

Rated PG for thematic elements.

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

USA:PG

Company:

Daniel Grodnik Productions

Goofs:

Continuity: The Book switches from listing years with two digits to four digits.

Movie Connections:

References E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

It Was Their Time

Wil Wheaton may have the cinematic record for shortest marriage. He gets married and as he gets into the car to leave for the honeymoon a car plows into the passenger side, killing his new bride and leaving him without a scratch.

His bride was a postulant nun who left the convent to marry Wheaton and that fact alone raises all kinds of theological implications. Why in fact was she taken?

Right after that, a mysterious messenger played by Isaac Hayes delivers an ancient text to Wheaton. It's a large book with names and dates, birth dates and death dates and some of them are listed for the near future.

What to do, if you're both a fresh grieving widower who questions why God didn't intervene and an insurance salesman given some impossible quotas to meet by a particularly nasty and smarmy boss played with relish by John C. Reilly. Now you know when folks are going to die, when it's their time, will you choose to intervene with the universal predestination?

Though Book of Days is a film with some intriguing questions raised it does have some limited production values and it will never be a classic. Still the players are all quite sincere in their work. Wil Wheaton has come a long way since playing model youth Wesley Crusher on Star Trek, The Next Generation.

Look also for good performances by Maureen Flannigan as the girl Wil probably should have married in the first place, Deborah Raffin as Wil's mother who's also a lawyer and Richard Grieco as an overly ambitious District Attorney.

Why Book of Days is not on the Christian circuit is beyond me. It's not great, but for the most part better than the product they come up with.