The Family Man
**
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Warner Village (Birkenhead Conway Park)
Released in the UK by UIP on December 22, 2000; certificate 12; 125 minutes;
country of origin USA; aspect ratio 2.35:1
Directed by Brett Ratner; produced by Marc
Abraham, Tony Ludwig, Alan Riche, Howard
Rosenman.
Written by David Diamond, David Weissman.
Photographed by Dante Spinotti; edited by Mark
Helfrich.
CAST.....
Nicolas Cage..... Jack Campbell
Tea Leoni..... Kate
Don Cheadle..... Cash
Jeremy Piven..... Arnie
Saul Rubinek..... Alan Mintz
Josef Sommer..... Lassiter
"The Family Man" stars Nicolas Cage
as a powerful capitalist wheeler and dealer who gets a visit from a spirit
offering him a glimpse of what his life would be like if he hadn't broken
up with college girlfriend Tea Leoni to study banking abroad. He goes to
bed at night in his beautiful urban bachelor pad, and wakes up in the New
York suburbs where he has Leoni as his wife, small children, blue-collar
buddies, and a job in his father-in-law's tyre shop.
It ain't hard to guess where this is gonna go
-- it runs along similar lines to such fare as "It's a Wonderful Life" and
"Mr Destiny", with our hero plunged into a fantasy world which helps him
appreciate the simple life. We know that Cage will be perplexed at first,
then grow to love the existence of being an ordinary Joe, then wake up
disenchanted with moneymaking and reunite with his old girlfriend with the
intent of starting a family. Cue end credits, heartwarming music, et
cetera.
If a movie is going to operate in such an obvious
structure, it should do it well. "The Family Man" does not. The Cage character
reacts to the 'glimpse' with embarrassingly tortuous lack of understanding
-- he genuinely doesn't know what's going on until near the end of the movie,
even though anybody who's seen a movie before would guess it within about
five minutes. And he tries to blend in with his situation without doing any
of the obvious things that would make it easier… instead of trying to
awkwardly fit in as his alternate self and trying to bluff memories in a
most unconvincing way, why doesn't he just tell his fantasy friends and family
that he's got amnesia, so people could explain his situation to him? The
movie could then follow a similar trajectory in a more convincing
manner.
I'm not being pedantic here. When films place
their heroes in fantasy situations, we try to imagine ourselves in those
situations -- so it nags at us when the protagonists don't act with any common
sense, and we have a hard time getting involved in the story. Right up to
the last scene, in which the real-life Leoni character reacts to Cage's rants
about his 'glimpse' with interest rather than getting on the phone to men
in white coats, the characters in "The Family Man" behave like pawns of a
lazy screenplay rather than people.
Pity. Clichéd structure and all, this would
have been a sweet little holiday picture if the particulars of the script
had been a little sharper. Cage and Leoni are charming, the Christmas setting
makes for poignant production design, and everything is well staged and scored.
Ah well… at least "It's a Wonderful Life" is going to be on TV over
Christmas.
COPYRIGHT©
2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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