THE FAMILY MAN

'''The Family Man''' is a 2000 Brett Ratner film starring Nicolas Cage (as Jack Campbell) and Téa Leoni, about a man who is given a glimpse at what could have been, if he had made a different decision 13 years ago. It is similar to ''It's a Wonderful Life'', in that it starts on Christmas Eve with a life and death situation involving an angel who tries to get the main character (Campbell) to take a long, earnest look at his life. In the end, the protagonists in both movies conclude that a quiet family life is preferrable to achieving huge success and wealth at work, although each movie's protagonist approaches the issue from opposite places initially.
The film has also been compared to Charles Dickens's ''A Christmas Carol'' because the protagonist is a greedy man who cares little about anyone except himself, who then has his life outlook completely changed after a series of real-life what-if experiences.

Contents

Synopsis

Shared themes

External links

Synopsis

Jack Campbell is a single, wealthy Wall Street merger and acquisition investment banker living the high life in New York City. All that magically changes one morning when he wakes up in a suburban New Jersey bedroom with a wife he never married and two kids he never had—the life he would have led if he had forgone investment banking as a younger man. While he wants to return to his high life, Jack is stuck in a "permanent acid trip" because an angel wants to teach the overly confident man a lesson. The angel displaces him into an entirely new world beyond his imaginings: suburban New Jersey. As he lives his life as the "family man," he becomes attached to the family he never had. Later his realization to the meaning of a family life leads him back to the wealthy, yet lonely life. Soon after he returns to reality, he forgoes his 130 billion dollar acquisition deal just to meet his dream wife for the last time. He tells her about the happy family that they could have together and they go out to dinner, suggesting that they might marry and be happy again.

Shared themes

Similar films include:

★ ''Mr. Destiny'', in which an angel-like being shows a man how his world would have been if an event in his past happened differently.

★ ''It's a Wonderful Life'', in which a man is able to see how things could have been if he'd never lived.

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