Review - The Family Man

I love watching actors who make seven digits per picture pretend that people who have to work for a living are actually much happier than their wealthy counterparts. Nicolas Cage stars as a successful Wall Street deal-maker who has no idea how unhappy he really is until Clarence-the-Angel-redone-as-a-homeless-black-guy magically transforms him into a tire salesman with a wife – his old college girlfriend – and two kids. Though things are naturally awkward at first, our hero eventually comes to understand the merits of simple domesticity over high finance. I’m not quite cynical enough to disbelieve the basic thesis, and I concede that the story features a few amusing scenes and even a touching moment or two. It’s just a little hard to swallow a multi-million dollar product about how the best things in life are free. Mildly amusing