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December 2000 Issue

This is Not My Beautiful Film: A Review of The Family Man

By Andrew Bender

For the record: The Family Man, a muddled, unfunny and surprisingly shallow mess of a movie, doesn't mention Hanukkah at all, or anything else remotely Jewish for that matter.

Jack (Nicolas Cage) starts out this fable as president of a New York investment bank, with a personal fortune that probably outclasses, oh, say, yours, by several thousand fold. When he's not engaging in such useless, self-aggrandizing behavior as driving his Ferrari the few blocks down Park Avenue to his office and making his staff work on Christmas, he's engaging in such useless, self-aggrandizing behavior as bedding piffle-headed women, running his fingers over his perfect shirt collection and prancing around his apartment in black bikini briefs while air guitaring "La Donna E Mobile."

But through a turn of events that is never quite explained, he's plunked down into the life that could have been had he married Kate, his college sweetheart played by Téa Leoni. In this alternative life, he's a tire salesman in suburban New Jersey. Retail--hoo hah! Although he's the same person inside, he knows nobody in his new situation (apart from Kate), and he finds that nobody from his old life has ever heard of him either.

What's worse, Jack's Seven Rings of Jersey is filled with the sort of people investment bank presidents are meant to abhor. His new neighbors feast on funnel cakes from the mall, go bowling, say "anyhoo," prefer American cigars to Cuban ones, and are under some sick impression that "La La (Means I Love You)" is a song with meaning.

Taking nothing away from the fine state of New Jersey, Jack's life there mirrors this film--it is D-U-L-L, even if he is married to Téa Leoni. Jack is at his most interesting when he is a shark at the investment bank, and the filmmakers missed some real opportunities to show him struggling to get back to his old high-flying life and the family assimilating into it. Instead, the story is really an elongated two-thirds-of-a-movie, in which Jack learns that it's possible to be average and still be happy. Boy, am I glad someone pointed that out!

Inevitably, people will compare this film to It's A Wonderful Life, given the release timed to the Christmas season and the film's "could have been" theme, but I think a better comparison is A Christmas Carol. Yet even that film managed to cover three episodes of Scrooge's life in two hours, while poor Nic Cage's single episode drags out over considerably more than eight days, and the pacing sometimes makes it feel like real time.

Adding insult to insult, the movie's promos feature the Talking Heads song "Once in a Lifetime" (its lyrics include "This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife"). It's one of your correspondent's favorite all time tunes, and it's never heard in the film.

Lest anyone call me a Scrooge, The Family Man did contain some nice moments, most of them involving Téa Leoni being sexy (as she was in Deep Impact and Flirting with Disaster). She's also funny, cranky and sweet, and the film could have used a lot more of her. Makenzie Vega (of TV's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and The Geena Davis Show) as their daughter is charming and perceptive, and Don Cheadle (Mission to Mars, Bulworth), who receives high billing in this film, is utterly wasted as the instrument of Jack's transportation between the two lives.

But even these bright spots are not enough to overcome the film's shortcomings. If you're looking for a meaningful diversion after your traditional Christmas Chinese dinner, Dude, Where's My Car? might be more your speed.

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The Family Man. Starring Nicolas Cage, Téa Leoni, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Piven, Makenzie Vega, Harve Presnell; Directed by Brett Ratner; Written by David Diamond, David Weissman. Rated PG-13; Running time: 125 minutes.

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