The Family Man: A review

[TeenHelp]

The Family Man: A review
By Jenna (~Abibliophobe~)

The Family Man stars Nicholas Cage and Tea Leoni. It is a movie that focuses on the characters Jack Campbell and Kate. The movie starts with Jack and Kate, who are college sweethearts, saying goodbye because Jack got an internship in London. As Jack is leaving, Kate asks him not to go; Jack promises her that his year in London will not break them up. The scene ends; it is thirteen years later and it is obvious that Jack and Kate have broken up. We are shown how rich Jack has become and how he is the president of a stock company. However, he doesn’t treat his employees all that well. He is rude to them, acts conceited and he doesn’t let them spend time with their families on an important holiday: Christmas Eve. Eventually Jack walks home and stops at a liquor store where he prevents a robbery. He gives the robber some money in exchange for a lottery ticket and the robber, who is played by Don Cheadle, warns him that there are going to be consequences for what he did. The audience is left wondering what that means but shortly thereafter Jack wakes up and is forced to realize that he is living in an alternate universe where he and Kate ended up getting married and having kids. The movie takes off from there and it is a bumpy ride.

Other reviews I have read about this movie compare it to ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, although they are all adamant that this movie does not compare and I agree. 'It’s a Wonderful Life' is a classic and I don’t think that ‘The Family Man’ will ever be a classic. One of the things I disliked about this movie was that the characters were hard to connect with and I think some of that had to do with lack of character development. I also think it was really hard to relate to Jack because he was an unrealistic character. He starts out as an extremely rich and conceited character and he continues being that way even though in the alternate universe he is not rich. Basically, it takes a while for his personality to change and that makes it difficult to get into him as a character. The only characters that I actually enjoyed throughout the movie were the kids parented by Jack and Kate. They were both really cute and I always relate to children in movies. The reason that I liked the scenes with the children is because they brought a realness to the movie. The movie was entirely far-fetched in a lot of ways but the scenes with the children were not as far-fetched. I also thought it was really cute how the daughter helped Jack do everyday tasks that he wasn't sure how to do.

The last thing that I really did not enjoy about this movie was that the ending left a lot of things unresolved. I don’t want to give away spoilers but there were no redeeming qualities with the ending. Instead it left me upset that I am left to wonder what actually happened with Jack and Kate’s story.

Even though I didn’t like the movie a whole lot I still thought there were some cute moments, such as the scene where Jack’s little girl ends up confronting him about not being her dad. The scenes involving the kids brought about some heartwarming moments and enabled me to connect with them.