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Family Man

An okay movie, though there should be more humor and drama from such a juicy premise.

The end

While the ending works- Kate buying into Jack’s speech about the family they could have- I feel the movie misses out on something better. Jack flying to London and leaving Kate thirteen years earlier is the foundation of the backstory and what I call the bottom layer of a sandwich. (A sandwich is a scene or line of dialogue or piece of info that is established and then used again later, but with a twist.) The top layer (like the top bun that completes a sandwich) is when Jack learns in the glimpse life that he flew back to Kate the next day. That was a “good surprise” to her and marriage and the rest of their lives together follow.

(Many people argue that the ending is a downer because Jack loses the wonderful glimpse life. I disagree and say that just about everything from the glimpse- especially the most important, the children- will become real after they re-connect.)

Two things seem natural to me when Kate announces she is moving to Paris. 1) Jack would fly to Paris the next day to see her, she would be pleasantly surprised and, with the same or similar speech from him, start to fall in love again. 2) Kate would be touched by Jack’s speech in the airport, but sadly tell him that she still must go. CUT TO: Jack wakes up the next day to a knocking door. Kate flew back to him.

In this light, the previously labeled top layer of the sandwich would be the middle and one of the above scenarios would be the top of the double-decker. It comes down to taking the established elements of your story to their natural conclusions. Why have an airport scene that reminds the audience of the London situation from thirteen years ago and then drop it? To do something different? To show that their history is going to change? One of my two options does the same thing.

If the story were less conventional and not high-concept, then misleading or keeping the audience guessing would be good filmmaking. But I feel the makers of this one made a baloney sandwich when the ingredients for a Deli Deluxe were at their disposal.

For more on this sandwich concept (aka setup/pay-off and planting seeds), see Good Will Hunting and Field of Dreams.

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