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Leoni Online Articles Ain't It Cool News Looks at The Family Man

We've got two of our long-time contributors both weighing in here with their opinions of THE FAMILY MAN, Brett Ratner's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE riff that's opening in the next few weeks. They definitely don't agree on things, so let me give them each their turn with the mic. First up, it's THE SCRUBBING BUBBLE, and he seems to have liked it quite a bit...

The Scrubbing Bubble looks at The Family Man
My favorite film of the year. A simple story, beautifully acted and flawlessly told. Nicolas Cage plays a rich Manhattan businessman who gets a glimpse of what his life would have been like if he had married his college sweetheart.

It is impossible to convey with words how this movie affected me emotionally. Danny Elfman's stirring score, Brett Ratner's visual composition, and the acting from Cage and Tea Leoni will break your heart. Scoff all you'd like. Call it a Capra rip off. Call me a sentimental fool. "The Family Man" has an elegance and sureness in its unfolding that captured me. Critics have kicked this film around the block. They have done so undeservingly. To not like this film is to give oneself completely over cynicism. And cynicism, and this will be my only sermon this evening, is the death of the heart.

Here finally, is a Hollywood film that doesn't say that it's bad to be rich and it's good to be a part of the working class. Hollywood has tried to pull this one over on us for years. Everyone out there making movies is filthy rich. Yet they pump out films every year that trump up the evil of money and emptiness of the idle rich. Why? Because the bulk of moviegoers, and the bulk of America, are middle class.

Ratner and his writers have made a much more honest and brave statement. There is nothing wrong with success. There is no shame in having so much money that it's like liquid. There is also nothing wrong with selling tires or pumping gas. There's no shame in having to save every single penny you make to get your kids to college. At the beginning of the film, when Cage is a master of the universe, he's happy. His life is great. And he's not a bad guy who needs a lesson in what it's like on the other side of the fence.

On Christmas Eve he is given a gift partly because of a good deed and partly because he doesn't understand the essential truth that everyone should know.

Happiness has nothing to do with being rich, being poor, or just being plain average. No matter what your station in life, you can only be happy by loving someone else and sharing your life with them. Family, friends, and the moments you share together, are the difference between a full and an empty existence. Everything else is relative.

At the end of the film, when Cage stands in an airport and makes a desperate plea to keep Leoni from leaving, he describes to her what their life together was like during his "glimpse". The conviction in his voice as he tries to make her see something she couldn't possibly see, and realization of what he's truly lost, is crushing.

But somehow she does see, and the look on her face...boys and girls, that is what great movies are all about.

And now, here with a somewhat less enthusiastic view of things, is our own Mysterio... part man, part machine, all opinion. Hey all, Mysterio here to clear the air of a few things.

First things first. Congrats guys on yet another successful Butt-Numb-a-thon. Sounds like a good time was had by all, but none more so than from the little blue smurfette with the plastic appendage who rode a certain you-know-who like a mechanical bull. Or vice-versa.

Secondly, again a Happy B-Day Harry, wherever in the god-forsaken world you’re off to know. Man, Indiana Jones doesn’t travel this much!

And thirdly, let me rant a little rant about a little film I caught at a press screening last week for a movie that sneaked this past Friday and Saturday night.

Ok, so Nicolas Cage doesn’t get to play Superman, but heaven help us he DOES get to play, “The FAMILY MAN.” (I kindda got snookered into this one when asked, “Hey wanna see the ‘Family Guy’ movie?” When it wasn’t animated, I knew, but at that point figured what the hell.

You all have seen the previews and TV spots for this one, and if you’ve seen any variation of Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol” with a heavy tip towards Frank Capra’s, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, then you’ve pretty much got the jist of what this flick is about (and you’ve more than likely seen better).

Now the “What if…” tag line that the film so much hinders upon, immediately reminded me of those older Marvel comics “What If…” series. Which I soon found myself asking the question “What if Cage had played Superman?” Well we may never know the answer to that question, but we will undoubtedly know the predictable outcome of this film.

Cage plays Jack Campbell, an aggressive New York power broker who can easily forsake the Christmas holiday for the sake of making a few big bucks. Even a call from his past girlfriend, Kate at his office doesn’t merit a return call within his busy career. His life isn’t totally fulfilled, but to his narrow money-minded mind, he feels as if he’s got everything he needs.

Enter an encounter with Cash (played by the always excellent Don Cheadle). Cash enters Campbell’s life to only turn it upside down and show him “a glimpse” at the life he so forsaken 13 years ago when he left Kate to pursue a brokerage career in London and promising to her that “nothing would change” once he came back months later.

Well wouldn’t ya just know it, everything’s changed. But thankfully Cash is there to show him the other road he chose not to travel, and what life riches he’s missed in his greedy pursuit of the almighty buck.

Seems that Universal is banking on just Christmas-themed movies this season, and if “The GRINCH” is any indication of the box-office score that Universal is banking on, this one may do them just as well when it opens Dec. 22nd.

But what I found most irritating, was not just the rehashed storyline, but how manipulative Brett Ratner’s direction is of the material. It just so begs a little too obvious to pull at your heartstrings in certain scenes that any emotional momentum is lost. Other scenes fall way to just plain bad acting, especially in Tea Leoni’s delivery near the film’s end of seeing Jack for the first time in 13 years. She acts if she hadn’t seen him in 13 days unlike Jack’s crazed confusion at waking up to see her again after more than a decade later.

The children are adorable, especially the little girl who speaks all her lines pronouncing her “v’s” as “b’s”. Example, “movies” is said as “moobies”. Cute, kid speak.

Cage spends the first half of the movie trying to come to grips with his altered life, that it’s pretty much a fish out of water situation for him. A complete 180 from what his life used to be to what it could’ve been. He is forced to learn what he never learned and come to understand and accept his domestic lifestyle over his fiscal one. Again love conquers all, even over the almighty buck. All I know is my lovin’ don’t come cheap baby! Man who writes this stuff! Why the writing team of David Weismann & David Diamond, same cats who co-wrote Ivan Reitman’s upcoming “Evolution.” Same guys who rewrote a nice little creepy sci-fi thriller, and turned it into a comedy. But I digress…

The film also proves another point that no matter what, pee and poopie jokes are hysterical, no matter what the circumstance. Only other thing missing was the monkey.

So, after spending 2 hours with “The Family Man”, one could easily find themselves asking for a quick divorce.

BTW, you can keep the dog.

-Mysterio Courtesy of Ain't It Cool News

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