Movie review: ‘The Family Man’

FloridaGator80

I’ve never been a huge fan of classic Christmas movies such as “Miracle on 34th Street” or the ultimate Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.” My favorite is “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (click here for my review) and it even took several viewings to fully appreciate “A Christmas Story” (click here to read my review). I’m not a fan of “Elf” and don’t consider “Home Alone” to be a Christmas film (click here for my change-of-mind review). However, there is one forgotten gem that has more drama than humor and doesn’t fall to saccharine levels despite many chances: “The Family Man.” It stars Nicolas Cage and Téa Leoni and if you haven’t seen it (or haven’t seen it recently), revisit it even out of season. It’s good and will lift your spirit no matter what the calendar says.

‘The Family Man’
(2000; 125 minutes; rated PG-13; directed by Brett Ratner and starring Nicolas Cage, Téa Leoni and Don Cheadle)

A HOLIDAY MESSAGE STORY TOLD WELL

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on July 21, 2018. I again expanded the review on Nov. 26, 2024.)

“The Family Man” has a number of chances to fail but never does. Better yet, it doesn’t become saccharine and it doesn’t try to rush any single moment. Best of all, it does have great acting through the entire cast and none of the actors forces a character in any way that evolves moves into an annoying spectrum.

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So, what is so special about “The Family Man?” It has the oft-told, but wonderful and predictable story of a rich, non-family businessman thrust into a family life. Both Nicolas Cage and Téa Leoni give the roles their all and with the help of supporting actors, such as the marvelous Jeremy Piven, weave a story that won’t leave a dry eye in the house.

BTW … I’ve spelled Téa Leoni’s first name once in this review as “Tea” without the accent. Some search engines would not pick up on it, so I’m putting one “common spelling” in for search engines. Back to the review …

In this one, Cage plays “Jack Campbell,” a Wall Street hotshot who as a younger man left Leoni behind as he started his financial career. Now he’s the toast of the financial world, works on Christmas Eve and plans to work Christmas Day. However, he falls afoul of a would-be robber who turns out to be spirit that propels him into the life he would have had if he’d married Leoni back in the day. He wakes up Christmas morning in bed with Leoni and their two kids come bounding in … and the fun starts.

  • An Oscar winner and nominee (not for this one), Cage does an excellent turn as he conveys his character’s disbelief of his situation into understanding, comprehension and finally getting back to being the person he once was. He is especially good at each surprise turn of finding out what his new life is about: where he works, who’s his family and each and every foible of a working person’s life. Cage has also been in “Leaving Las Vegas” (his Oscar is for this dark, grim masterpiece), “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “National Treasure.” He was nominated for “Adaptation.” I also liked him in “Con Air” and “Valley Girl,” but like him best his back-to-back efforts in the 1980s of “Peggy Sue Got Married” from his uncle Francis Ford Coppola and the quirky “Raising Arizona” from the equally quirky Coen brothers.
  • Leoni gives a simply outstanding turn as “Kate Reynolds,” who turns into “Kate Campbell.” She’s the woman Cage leaves at an airport in the first scene. She is very convincing as the hardworking mother and pro-bono attorney on the side and has all the efficiency and mother instincts, but most of all her love for Cage. While the Christmas spirit pushes Cage here, it is truly Leoni’s film as the actor doing the best work. She was wonderful in “Jurassic Park III” (click here to read my review), not as much so in the remake of “Fun with Dick and Jane” and you’ll have to see the little-recognized “You Kill Me” with Ben Kingsley, in which she does her best and most powerful work as an actor (click here to read my review). Téa has a remarkably slim resume of only 27 acting credits since the first in 1989, which was six episodes on the TV soap “Santa Barbara.” The one I wish she hadn’t done was “Tower Heist” (click here to read my review).

Children actors can be cute, funny, obnoxious, etc., but seldom do they do as good work as Makenzie Vega playing “Annie Campbell.”

  • Vega, who was five at the time of filming, conveys emotion and develops her character better here than most adult actors will do in any role. It is a treat to watch the scene where you find out that she knows instinctively that her father has changed and she now believes him to be an alien from space. Vega was also in “Saw,” “Sin City” and TV’s “The Good Wife.”

Now, on to the rest of the cast. I’ll take a look at …

  • A Golden Globe winner and five-time nominee (not for this one), Piven plays Cage’s best friend “Arnie” in yet another great turn. He is earnest and endearing and although not a character as manic as his in “Entourage” (click here for my review), he gives it his all. I thought Piven did great in a small role in in “Grosse Point Blank” (click here for my review) and he was in the ultra-violent “Smokin’ Aces” as well as the comedy “Old School.” His Globe and nominations are for HBO’s series “Entourage.”
  • The Christmas spirit “Cash Money” is played by Oscar nominee (not for this one) Don Cheadle in a small but energetic effort. Cheadle is the spirit that transforms Cage by giving him a “glimpse” of what his life would have been if he had married Leoni. Cheadle, who was nominated for “Hotel Rwanda,” has also been in the remake of “Ocean’s Eleven” and its sequels (click here for my look at “Eleven” … and here for “Thirteen”), two of the “Iron Man” films and as the scary, cold-blooded street gang killer “Rocket” in “Colors” with Robert Duvall.
  • Saul Rubinek is Cage’s underling “Alan Mintz” in the character’s real life and he does an outstanding job of turning to a completely different personality when his character becomes head of the firm during Cage’s fantasy. Rubinek played another Wall Street sharpie in, you guessed it, “Wall Street” with a tiny part and he gave his arguably best performance on the big screen in Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven.”
  • Sommer plays the hard-driving, business-oriented “Peter Lassiter,” who is head of the firm. While not a good person in this one, “Peter Lassiter” is without the villainy of Sommer’s characters in “Target” (click here to read my review) or “Witness” with Harrison Ford. However, he plays all with all the same smooth conviction, just like he did in his very first film – the iconic “Dirty Harry” with Eastwood as the legalistic prosecutor who has to let the killer go free (click here to read my review).
  • It was nice to see Mary Beth Hurt here in the role of “Adelle” as Cage’s assistant. Her best role has been as “Helen Holm” in “The World According to Garp” with the late Robin Williams and she has been in “Interiors” and “The Age of Innocence.” She, too, is a less-than-prolific actor with 50 credits over a career spanning five decades.
  • Kate Walsh does a solid job as she plays the libidinous “Jeannie” who has been plotting for years to get much closer to Cage. She has been in botched so-called reboot of “Bewitched” and on TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”

It is nice to note that “The Family Man” has depth to its plot, too. Cage has to grapple with the amorous wife of a neighbor and the chance to go back to Wall Street but this time with Leoni and two kids. It’s all handled well by director Brett Ratner, who has done everything from the awful “Rush Hour” to the much better “Red Dragon” to … uh, well, “Hercules.” Of course, the biggest stain on his resume is “After the Sunset,” but you can blame some of that on the talentless Woody Harrelson (click here to read my review). He also directed “Tower Heist” with Leoni, but it wasn’t as bad as the dreck served up in “After the Sunset.”

At just over two hours in length, you get a ton of good acting and a feel-good, but not smarmy, ending that brings the film back to its beginning at an airport.

“The Family Man” was the 30th ranked film at the U.S. box office in 2000 with $75.7 million in receipts, according to Box Office Mojo. Its budget was $60 million and worldwide ultimately earned $124.7 million, according to Wiki. The top film of the year was (ironically) “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” with $260 million followed by Tom Hanks’ “Cast Away” with $233.6 million. Here are the other films of 2000 that I’ve reviewed:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Leoni’s birth name is Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni and she’s 5-foot-8 (a bit taller than the average Hollywood micro-man star); Rubinek’s middle name is Hersh and he was born in Föhrenwald, Wolfratshausen, Bavaria, Germany and is two inches shorter than Leoni; and Hurt’s birth name is Mary Beth Supinger and she’s two inches shorter than Rubinek.
  • Cage’s birth name is Nicholas Kim Coppola and I’ve already mentioned his relationship with a filmmaker of note named Francis Ford. He dropped the “h” in his first name and used his real last name for both his first acting credit (a TV movie) and first movie credit (a bit part in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” as “Brad’s bud”). “Valley Girl” was his debut using the stage name “Cage.”
  • Sommer, too, is flexible with the spelling of one of his names, but he doesn’t go stage the same as Nic Cage did. Sommer’s full name is Maximilian Joseph Sommer, but professionally he uses his middle name first and spells it European-style as “Josef.”
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “The scene with Jack looking at his old book and cologne that Kate gives him back was originally supposed to have Led Zeppelin’s ‘All of My Love’ playing in the background but the song was too expensive to acquire.”
  • In Hollywood’s never-ending attempts at mis-casting, John Travolta was at one time set to play the role given to Cage. I’m not criticizing Travolta (an actor whose work I enjoy), but he would have been a fish totally out of water with this one.
  • Robert Downey Sr. has a bit part here and is better known as a director as well as the father of “Iron Man’s” Robert Downey Jr. in real life.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “According to the DVD commentary, the scene where Jack gets back into his minivan and the minivan won’t start was a happy accident that wasn’t supposed to happen. The director thought it was a perfect beat and left it in the final cut.”

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