The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
Back to trending 
The Family Man
Comedy · Drama · Romance · 2000
Jack's lavish, fast-paced lifestyle changes one Christmas night when he stumbles into a grocery store holdup and disarms the gunman. The next morning he wakes up in bed lying next to Kate, his college sweetheart he left in order to pursue his career, and to the horrifying discovery that his former life no longer exists. As he stumbles through this alternate suburban universe, Jack finds himself at a crossroad where he must choose between his high-power career and the woman he loves.
Movie details
The Family Man
“What if you made different choices? What if you said yes, instead of no? What if you got a second chance?”
2000 Comedy · Drama · Romance 2h 5m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.8 / 10
Community rating
Jack's lavish, fast-paced lifestyle changes one Christmas night when he stumbles into a grocery store holdup and disarms the gunman. The next morning he wakes up in bed lying next to Kate, his college sweetheart he left in order to pursue his career, and to the horrifying discovery that his former life no longer exists. As he stumbles through this alternate suburban universe, Jack finds himself at a crossroad where he must choose between his high-power career and the woman he loves.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Family Man?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Arizona Dream
Fantasy · 1993
Rebellious young Axel Blackmar gets caught up into the family car business when his cousin, Paul, coaxes him to come to Arizona to attend the wedding of their Uncle Leo. As Axel makes the decision to try selling Cadillacs with his family, he meets an eccentric woman named Elaine and her equally quirky stepdaughter, Grace. Their lives become inextricably intertwined through romance, dreams – and death.
A California Christmas
Comedy · 2020
With his carefree lifestyle on the line, a wealthy charmer poses as a ranch hand to get a hardworking farmer to sell her family’s land before Christmas.
Father of the Bride
Romance · 2022
A father comes to grips with his daughter’s upcoming wedding through the prism of multiple relationships within a big, sprawling Cuban-American family.
The Noel Diary
Romance · 2022
Cleaning out his childhood home at Christmas, a novelist meets a woman searching for her birth mother. Will an old diary unlock their pasts — and hearts?
Eternity
Romance · 2025
In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.
Which Brings Me to You
Romance · 2023
Two romantic burnouts, Jane and Will, are immediately drawn to each other at a mutual friend’s wedding. After a disastrous hookup in the coatroom, the two spend the next 24 hours together, trading candid confessions of messy histories and heartbreak, on the off chance that this fling might be the real thing.
Last Christmas
Comedy · 2019
Kate is a young woman who has a habit of making bad decisions, and her last date with disaster occurs after she accepts work as Santa's elf for a department store. However, after she meets Tom there, her life takes a new turn.
Click
Comedy · 2006
A married workaholic, Michael Newman doesn't have time for his wife and children, not if he's to impress his ungrateful boss and earn a well-deserved promotion. So when he meets Morty, a loopy sales clerk, he gets the answer to his prayers: a magical remote that allows him to bypass life's little distractions with increasingly hysterical results.
The Preacher's Wife
Family · 1996
Good-natured Reverend Henry Biggs finds that his marriage to choir mistress Julia is flagging, due to his constant absence caring for the deprived neighborhood they live in. On top of all this, his church is coming under threat from property developer Joe Hamilton. In desperation, Biggs prays to God for help – which arrives in the form of an angel named Dudley.
The Holiday
Comedy · 2006
Two women, one American and one British, swap homes at Christmastime following bad breakups. Each woman finds romance with a local man but realizes that the imminent return home may end the relationship.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Brett Ratner
Written by
David Diamond · David Weissman
Nicolas Cage
Jack Campbell
Téa Leoni
Kate Reynolds
Don Cheadle
Cash
Jeremy Piven
Arnie
Saul Rubinek
Alan Mintz
Josef Sommer
Peter Lassiter
Makenzie Vega
Annie Campbell
Court is in session
Put The Family Man on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.