The Family Man
The Family Man is a 2000 "What If" film starring Nicolas Cage, Tea Leoni and Don Cheadle in which Cage plays Jack Campbell, a wealthy Wall Street executive who hears from his old college girlfriend and wonders what might have been. He has a fateful meeting with a man who magically sends him to an Alternate Universe where he married his college girlfriend.
The film is similar to It's a Wonderful Life because it starts on Christmas Eve. Moreover, by the end, Jack learns that living a quiet happy family life is preferable to achieving success and wealth at work.
Not to be confused with the Family Guy.
Tropes used in The Family Man include:
- Ambition Is Evil
- Book Ends: The film begins and ends at an airport.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Jack Campbell's boss kinda comes across as much, he even jokes about the idea.
- Defrosting Ice King: Jack Campbell.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Subverted by the end of the film.
- Earn Your Happy Ending
- For Want of a Nail: The entire meaning of Jack's alternate life, or glimpse.
- Heel Face Turn: Jack, though he wasn't a really evil guy to begin with.
- It's a Wonderful Plot
- Lonely at the Top: Jack's life after moving to London in 1988.
- Magical Negro: Cash.
- Married to the Job
- Memetic Mutation: This is the film where the "You Want This Cake?" exchange comes from.
- Opinion-Changing Dream
- The Scrooge: Jack Campbell, he got better.
- Smug Snake: The alternate version of Alan Mintz.