My favorite movie, among many favorites, is Family Man starring Nicholas Cage as Jack Campbell and Tea Leoni as Kate Reynolds. After college the couple has a plan that he will go work for a brokerage house in Europe and become a successful broker and promotion seeking business man while she pursues her law practice. But as life tends to do, he didn't stay connected to her and continued on with his life being successful and keeping relationships contained to sexual encounters.
On Christmas Eve, Jack decides to walk home from the office and stops off to buy some eggnog. While he is in the store a man enters to cash in a winning lottery ticket. The cashier refuses claiming that the guy falsified the ticket. The guy pulls a gun and tries to force the matter. Jack offers to pay the guy for the lottery ticket himself. The guy takes the deal and walks out with Jack. The guy goes on and on about how the higher ups are impressed with Jack's behavior. As they walk, Jack suggests that the guy get some help and go to a shelter and says something about “Everybody wants something.” The guy stops Jack and says”Remember that you asked for this.” and walks away.
Jack goes home and and finishes the evening with a lovely lady and lays down to go to sleep alone. He wakes up in another bed entirely with a woman, Kate, telling him to go make some very strong coffee, a preschooler jumping on the bed and hollering, and a screaming baby. He makes a run for it and drives back to his penthouse in the city where the doorman won't let him in and his office where they no longer know his name. The lottery ticket guy shows up in Jack's Ferrari and explains to Jack that this is a “glimpse.”
He heads back to the suburbs and is found by someone who is a close friend in this strange parallel universe. His friend thinks that Jack is having a nervous breakdown and advises him not to make a decision about anything just because he is a little confused right now (good advice). His friend guides him back to the correct house where he gets scolded by Kate for missing Christmas with her and the kids. He explains to her that this isn't his life and like any wife would, she takes it personally. Over time he gets to know and love his wife and two children and begins to understand how they got to this place in their lives where he is selling tires and she is a nonprofit lawyer. Then suddenly he is sent back to his real life.
He goes to find Kate who is a strong career woman high up in a law firm that is sending her to work in Paris. He talks her into missing her flight and tells her all about their kids and their life and tries to convince her of what they lost when he chose not to return all those years before.
.jpg)
I like this movie because it shows that its never too late.
No comments:
Post a Comment