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THE FAMILY MAN Send This Review to a Friend
Evidently "The Family Man" is aspiring to be a 2000 type of "It's a Wonderful Life." But that was a film suited to an earlier period, and Nicolas Cage is no Jimmy Stewart. Besides, I've never even been a fan of Frank Capra's dose of sentiment.
The twist here is that at the outset Cage plays an ambitious young man who flies off to London to begin his quest for success even though the woman with whom he is in love (Tea Leoni) pleads with him not to go because she has a feeling it will spoil everything. He leaves anyhow and she was right. Leap ahead fifteen years and we now find him a super-successful New York business executive, who on Christmas Eve gets a message from his old flame, but is now far removed from those days and on a workaholic treadmill. He doesn't even want to return the call. Past is past.
That night something strange happens. After an odd incident, he dreams that he no longer is recognized in his fancy building or at work, but he is married to his former love, lives with her in a house in New Jersey, is a father and suburban family man and works as a car salesman. Apart from the shock, the situation is anathema to him. His dreams of career conquest have been shattered. Of course, before the journey is over, he is destined to realize that this is really the meaningful life and the one he has had is a waste.
The film is about discovering the values that matter and getting a second chance. Cage is actually reasonably good in the part, and Tea Leoni is easy to watch and enjoy as his co-star. There are also some amusing bits here and there in the rigors of family life and in unexpected confrontations. It is the sugary story that can make one gag despite the handiwork of screenwriters David Diamond and David Weissman and director Brett Ratner. Maybe we live in a too cynical age for such stuff. This effort to tug at one's heart with what might have been and what should be seems too super-soppy even for the Christmas season. A Universal release.
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