Cast: Nicolas Cage, Tea Leoni, Jeremy Piven, Don Cheadle, Harve Presnell, Josef Sommer
Director: Brett Ratner
Producers: Marc Abraham, Tony Ludwig, Alan Riche, Howard Rosenman
Screenplay: David Diamond & David Weissman
Cinematography: Dante Spinotti
Music: Danny Elfman
U.S. Distributor: Universal Pictures
The Family Man is the latest in a flurry of recent movies to contemplate life in an alternate reality. An amalgamation of elements and ideas from sources like A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, and Groundhog Day, The Family Man proves to be an effective, if not truly impressive, look at the road not taken. It's also an almost exact copy of Pip Karmel's 1999 feature, Me Myself I, which took a similar premise and approached in from the female point of view. In that movie, the protagonist was played by Rachel Griffiths. This time around, it's Nicolas Cage.
Regret, it is said, is one of the most important elements of life. Every time we make a serious choice, regret inevitably follows, if only fleetingly. The bigger the decision, the more likely we are to wonder what would have happened if we had elected another option. To take a job or not to take a job... To marry or not to marry... To be or not to be... Those are the questions. And it's the nature of life that we only learn how one half of each twin possibility turns out. So, those who are married, for example, wonder what it would have been like to ride the wave of bachelordom (or bachelorettedom) into middle age. And those who are single, understanding that loneliness can be the companion of independence, ponder what it would be like to be shackled to someone else. However, while the untraveled road remains shrouded in mystery in the real world, movies like The Family Man enjoy parting the fog and giving their characters a glimpse of what they have missed.
Nicolas Cage plays Jack Campbell, a wheeler-dealer who's the toast of Manhattan and "a credit to capitalism." He is willing to do anything to close a deal, including forcing his entire team to work late on Christmas Eve then come in for a "strategy session" on Christmas Day. Family has no meaning for Jack. Then, on his way home after work late on Christmas Eve, he encounters a street hustler (Don Cheadle) who turns out to be an angel of sorts. When Jack claims that he has everything in life that he needs, the angel decides to prove that's not the case, and transports Jack into an alternate universe where he has been married for 13 years to Kate (Téa Leoni), his college girlfriend. He is no longer rich, he works at a tire dealership, he has two kids, and he lives in a small house in Teaneck, New Jersey. Jack is initially horrified, but, in true It's a Wonderful Life fashion, he begins to connect with this lifestyle, which focuses on people and relationships rather than money and possessions.
Boiled down to its essence, The Family Man is a romantic comedy dressed up with a lot of intriguing philosophical side issues. At the core of the film is the relationship between Jack and Kate, and how her love (and the affection of his children) redeems him and proves the old-fashioned ideal that true wealth comes from having a family, not a 10-figure bank account. For the most part, this relationship works. Neither Cage nor Leoni does groundbreaking work here, but they're both effective and likable, and, when together, they click. And, although Cage is not recognized as an actor with great range, he capably handles Jack's transition from self-centered bachelor to giving husband and father.
The Family Man is not a flawless exploration of this scenario. At a little over two hours in length, the movie wears out its welcome. Director Brett Ratner (who made his mark in Hollywood directing Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in Rush Hour) has a tendency to include redundant scenes, especially late in the film as Jack is coming to the realization that he likes his "new" life. Ratner seems unsure how much the audience needs to buy Jack's conversion, and he ends up belaboring the point. The conclusion is lame, as if the filmmakers couldn't decide how to wrap things up and went with a "you can have your cake and eat it" option. For a story that is in large part about sacrifice, this doesn't work.
Overall, however, The Family Man is a pleasant motion picture, and, placed side-by-side with its opposite gender clone, Me Myself I, it is the more appealing movie. Despite its flaws, the screenplay is effective enough to get us thinking about a few philosophical issues (which a movie like this should always do) while it tells a worthwhile story. This is the second major film of 2000 to update and reshape Dickens' A Christmas Carol (the other being Disney's The Kid), and its success argues in favor of the timelessness of the themes and issues involved.
© 2000 James Berardinelli