The Family Man film review

certificate_12

THE FAMILY MAN

High-powered Wall Street golden boy Jack Campbell (Nicolas Cage) stumbles into a hold-up in his local convenience store and, in a rare moment of courage, tries to talk down the agitated gunman.

The next morning, after a surreal conversation with the would-be thief Cash (Don Cheadle), Jack awakes in a cluttered suburban New Jersey bedroom, lying next to his college sweetheart Kate (Tia Leoni), the woman he left standing at an airport 13 years earlier.

All of the trappings of his old life are gone: the swish Manhattan apartment, thousand-dollar designer suits, shiny Ferrari and supermodel girlfriends-for-hire.

Now there's a mini-van in the drive, his closet is full of unfashionable flannel shirts, and his place of employment is Big Ed's Tyres. Most importantly, Jack has acquired a precocious six-year-old daughter Annie (Makenzie Vega) and a newborn son.

Although spooked at first, Jack comes to appreciate his new life, picking up parenting tips from young Annie and falling in love again with Kate. But just as Jack is settling into his new life, the "glimpse"at his alternative ends and Jack rebounds to reality.

The Family Man bears an uncanny likeness to the Australian comedy-drama Me Myself I and there are also echoes of It's A Wonderful Life. But this film is predisposed to pat sentimentality and filters out some of the darker elements of Jack's emotional journey.

A neighbour's wife, with whom Jack is tempted to have an affair, disappears after the first hour. And his sudden decision to splash out on an evening at a fancy restaurant for Kate's birthday, when she has already made clear that they are on a tight budget, is the height of recklessness.

Cage is good value as the two sides of an all-American Everyman. He is brash and arrogant in his Wall Street persona but clumsy and scatological as the family man, scrimping and saving to keep the family in food and clothes.

Leoni is the perfect wife - despairing whenever Jack wastes money and desperate for affection. There's a pleasant screen chemistry between the couple, whether they are covered in chocolate cake snogging on the stairs, or dancing dreamy-eyed in the middle of the swanky restaurant.

The film comes unstuck badly in the final reel when Jack, in his Wall Street guise, turns up on Kate's doorstep and tries to woo her back on the day she is due to fly to Paris.

He doesn't work for his fairytale ending, yet the film is determined to give it to him. What a cheat.