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With An Unexpected Conversation, A Lost Soul Finds A New Path

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By KATHY BLUMENSTOCK, The Washington Post

Published: December 9, 2007

Former baseball player Chick Benetto has a broken life, spiraling out of control and fueled by alcoholism. His only daughter didn't invite him to her wedding, and now Chick harbors a growing determination to take his own life.

"I like the struggle the guy is going through," said Michael Imperioli, who portrays Chick in "Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day," based on Albom's 2006 best seller. "I enjoy playing characters who are struggling, particularly with themselves."

Chick, whose baseball glory days are more than 30 years distant, "is trying to reconcile how he is, who he is, with his family around him, and the issues with his mother, his wife and his child," Imperioli said.

The story, about a man who is given an extra day with his deceased mother, is rooted in a casual conversation author Albom had with his own mother several years ago.

"It hit me when I hung up the phone: What will it be like when I can't call her anymore?" he said. "It was like I got hit with depression about something that hasn't happened yet. It was almost like a physical feeling."

Like the book, the film follows Chick through an extraordinary day. He appears to walk away from a deadly car accident and is reunited with his long-deceased mother, Posey (Ellen Burstyn). She leads Chick on a journey through his early life, revisiting the small-town places and people he remembers, but she shows him how his own memories often are at odds with reality.

Chick's perception of his mother shifts, and he begins to understand the reasons his father (Scott Cohen), whom he adored, left the family. He also learns why his mother was less than enthusiastic about Chick's interest in baseball and how she lost her job at a hospital.

"She was warm and tough on him," Imperioli said of Chick's mother. "I wonder if that is kind of her purpose in this encounter with him. She had to get through to him that he can't fall back on the excuses he has fallen back on all his life. He didn't realize the mother was on his side, too - he was always all about the father."

The younger Chick, seen in flashbacks, is played by Imperioli's son Vadim.

"He has good instincts," Imperioli said. "He has that one scene in the library when he takes the book and dusts the cover off. It wasn't dusty, but he came up with that detail. I think acting will be something he will stay with."

The library scene, in which young Chick selects "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," only to be told by a stern librarian that it's too advanced for him, is a direct lift from Albom's own life. "It's kind of a legendary story in my family," he said. "My mother really did say to that librarian, 'Never tell a child something is too hard for him.'"

One element of the story line that was not natural for Michael Imperioli was baseball. "They had to teach him how to hit," said Albom

Imperioli, whose character is called up from the minor leagues to join the New York Mets for the 1973 World Series, described learning the game as fun, "but baseball is a very difficult skill."

Besides baseball, Imperioli's preparation for the role included "a lot of looking at myself," he said. "Not for the character's addiction, but for my familiar relations with people who are here and not here. My parents are still here, and I'm lucky that way."

Albom also worked with Burstyn and Imperioli on "The Five People You Meet in Heaven," a previous film based on one of Albom's books.

"They were not as much featured in that movie, and they didn't even work together," he said. "When we talked about casting for this, there was no hesitation."

The movie, filmed in Connecticut, has the vintage look of a 1950s suburb, with muted colors, small homes and shops. But the World Series segment is all major league.

"Renting out Shea Stadium, filling it with people to simulate a baseball game, getting these two teams together ... it was one of those moments," said Albom, who recalled "making up that scene in my basement, and then here it was in front of me."

ON TELEVISION

For One More Day

WHEN: 9 tonight

WHERE: ABC

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