There's a real sincerity to The Family Man.
You've really grown into a beautiful woman.
It's a movie that sets up one reality, then
takes place mostly in an alternate reality, and doesn't want you to ask too many questions
about how it got there.
Promise you won't kidnap me and my brother and plant stuff in our brains?
Sure.
It just wants your heart.
Welcome to Earth.
Jack Campbell is a wealthy, single man. He works on Wall Street, he orchestrates 100
billion dollar mergers, and he practices opera in the morning as he decides what $2000 suit
to wear. Jack thinks he has everything he wants. But one morning Jack wakes up and he's
living in an alternate reality where instead of working on Wall Street, he works as a tire
salesman, and instead of living alone, he has a wife and two children.
Why don't we go to all the stores?
Every single store in this godforsaken shopping mall.
Wouldn't that be exciting?
This alternate reality is a glimpse that allows Jack to assess what he really wants out of life.
Will you come whenever I ring it?
Now you gotta get out of the car, Jack.
I love the way Jack approaches his strange new reality. He's always asking for help and
understanding, even when he's being completely unreasonable. He misses Christmas morning.
He gets up and leaves his wife, his kids; he misses presents, breakfast. Imagine if
your Dad did that. And when his wife, Kate, is yelling at him about it he goes,
"I don't know. Could you-could you please stop yelling at me?"
And she does. He just tells people what he wants, no matter how unreasonable.
"Oh-oh no, you're not going to start crying, are you? I don't think I could really deal with that right now."
"So if you had to, what would you say was the biggest surprise?"
'Well, Annie.'
And I love the accomplice he has in his daughter, Annie.
"Just push the red button."
He can't make it through his life without
her. She's the only one who can tell that he's not the same guy. But she simply asks
"Do you know how to make chocolate milk?"
'I think I could figure it out.'
And she accepts him and helps him.
"And ballet class until 5:30."
'5:30. OK.'
"And try not to be late 'cause kids don't like to be the last one picked up."
'Got it. Good tip.'
It's a long process for Jack to accept his role as a family man. He doesn't understand
what's in it for him.
"Get six hours of sleep, if I'm lucky and then everything starts all over again."
So-so what's in it for me? Where-where are my Mary Janes?
But as the movie goes on you start to see parallels between Jack's former life and his
new one, and he starts to see a better version of himself. For example, as a family man,
Jack still sings.
Except instead of singing alone and hiding it
he sings in front of his family and friends, to his wife.
"La la la la la la la la, means, I love you~"
It's in these parallels where he starts to see a life he really wanted deep down -- he just didn't know it.
As Jack starts to get accustomed to his family man life style, his wife gets him an anniversary
gift. Just as he is now. Not her husband who sings to her from the home videos, but for
him. She gets him a version of the suit he wanted in the department store, a suit that
seemed important to him, even while he was being a jerk.
It's such a lovely format for a love story, because it puts a man smack in the middle
of the routine of family life. The monotonous grind of life with all its people and schedules
and responsibilities. The kind of life we dream about getting a vacation from. And while
he's there, Jack falls in love.
"My God. All this time. I never stopped loving you."
He gets to see love through the eyes of Kate and the beautiful way she looks at her own
life.
"I had this image of us, all grey and wrinkly,
and me working in the garden and you re-painting the deck."
It's a movie that forces you to buy into an alternatre reality, fall in love with it,
like Jack does, then ask questions about that impossible, alternate reality.
Like when Jack realizes he will be forced to leave his newfound family, and go back
to his single life.
"You can't keep coming in and out of people's lives, messing things up. It's not right."
What would you do if you were going to disappear tomorrow, and knew it? What would tell your wife?
"I need you to remember me, Kate. How I right now."
"Please just promise me. You have to promise, Kate, because if you don't then it's like it never happened and I don't think I can live with that."
'I promise.'
"Promise me again."
Or worse, what if you kept loving all the people in your life, but you were erased from
their memories and their hearts.
"Do you ever think about us, Kate?"
If you saw them on the street, you'd feel the same, but
they would feel nothing. Imagine your loved one whose embrace you looked at for safety.
Whose touch was so familiar you can't imagine life without it. Imagine if you looked at
them and they looked right through you.
It's an even more unimaginable emptiness than being alone, because it's not like you lost
love, it's like it never happened.
When their roles are reversed, and Jack is back in reality, he sells Kate on married
life, the way she sold him -- by painting a picture of their lives.
"We have two kids! Annie and Josh."
"Annie's not much of a violin player, but she tries real hard."
"She's a little precocious, but that's only because she says what's on her mind."
"And when she smiles ..."
He hasn't just learned what he needs, he's learned how to love. She taught him and now
he's teaching it to her. It's a beautiful thing, to learn how to love so well that you
can teach it to someone else. And that's what The Family Man wants. To take your hand and
show you that, your slobbery dog, your monotonous routine of family life, your sad checkbook,
aren't the things you should focus on, but that focusing on how dedicating your life
to loving someone, is the highest ideal you can strive for.
"I knew you'd come back."
'Oh Annie. I love you.'