A Case For Life

Was Valerie's TV movie career finished after her last two TV bombs? Not so. She was back with A Case for Life (Feb 18, 1996) and Two Mothers For Zachary (Sep 22, 1996). This time, I saw them and was relieved that Val was doing much better quality movies than her previous two before.

In "A Case For Life", which is not based on any actual case, in one of the interviews, she explains "If something in the script gives me great fear, then I want to do it. Each role I do, I want to do something I haven't done before. I try not to repeat myself. This, is definitely not repeating myself."

She plays a pro-life activist who develops a life-threatening illness. The only thing that will save her is a therapeutic abortion, which she refuses. Her sister, a pro-choice attorney played by Mel Harris from "thirtysomething", takes her to court to force a decision. Bertinelli says she viewed abortion differently after reading the script. "Even if I disagree with whatever my character is saying, there's a part of me that does agree with what she's saying. It truly is her choice whether to have this child or not. I'm totally not like the character...and that's the reason I chose to play her. I really wanted to see if I could get into the mind of someone that I totally disagreed with. And by the end of it, I really did understand where she was coming from."

In the script of the movie, it presented accurate views of both pro-life and pro-choice advocates, but those in the middle could be inspired to look at the issue again and bring a little humanity to the debate.

For Bertinelli, "A Case For Life" was particularly significant.

Since the birth of son Wolfgang, she has made career choices that enlighten and enrich. "I've made better choices," she corrects. "I've done the "I'll Take Manhattan,' the romantic stuff. I've done the murder of the week but this, I thought, would be incredibly challenging."

Bertinelli remembers episodes of her "One Day at a Time" that didn't skirt issues of the day. "Series can do a great job (but) it does take the characters that you see week in and week out out of what they're doing."

Movies, she says, can focus on an issue much more specifically.