REVIEW
Fate Is Enough
Two new movies explore that favorite holiday theme: what might have been.

by BRIAN LIBBY
243-2122 ext 355

For Scrooge it began with a bad dream. George Bailey leapt off a bridge, and Bugs Bunny made a wrong turn at Albuquerque. From fantasies to simple twists of fate, the holidays have often brought excursions down life's road not traveled. What better way to make us appreciate what we have than by taking it away? This week, two acting superstars are the latest to take the plunge.

In The Family Man, Nicolas Cage plays Jack Campbell, a jaded Wall Street bachelor given a glimpse of life in the 'burbs with a wife and kids. Thirteen years ago Jack was headed for a prestigious internship in London when, at that crucial fork in the road, his girlfriend (Téa Leoni) begged him to stay home. Jack refused, and fate relegated the poor sap to a lonely life of Lear jets and horny models. Just as he's about to close a big business deal on Christmas Eve, however, Jack is magically transported into a new life in which he never set off for London.

Jack's alternate fate brings him from Manhattan to New Jersey, a distance infinitely wider than the Hudson River. Only a truly pissed-off fairy godmother would turn Jack's Ferrari into a minivan, his Italian suits into K-Mart casual, and his executive suite into a radial tire store. And that's not even counting all the shitty diapers. Which brings us to the good news: Jack's old flame is now his adoring wife, and they're the parents of two bouncing baby Jerseyites. His dismally failed dreams not withstanding, Jack's nuclear family sets him aglow with warm fuzzy feelings he didn't know he had. Mediocrity is bliss.

Despite Leoni's heart-rending performance, The Family Man is beef jerky made from It's a Wonderful Life's filet mignon. Director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour) and co-writers David Diamond and David Weissman apparently think we haven't been watching TV in December for the last 50 years. Either that or they're incredibly cynical about what will play in Peoria. (Actually, they might be right.) And fortunately for them, virtually no one this year saw Me Myself I, an Australian film with the exact same plot but infinitely more charm, intelligence and brevity. If they really had guts, Ratner and company would have told this story in reverse.

Meanwhile, Tom Hanks has rejoined Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis to explore an unforeseen offering from life's box of chocolates. Cast Away is the natural companion to The Perfect Storm as a two-part rendering of the Gilligan's Island story. First the weather started getting rough, and a tiny ship was tossed. Now the action moves to an uncharted desert isle, where FedEx agent Chuck Noland (Hanks) is marooned with no phone, no light, no motorcar--not a single luxury. Chuck is paid to worry about time, but now he can only sit on the beach and wait while, three thousand miles away, his fiancée (Helen Hunt) assumes he's dead and moves on with her life. Let's just say Chuck would prefer something stronger than coconut milk.

Zemeckis may be an Oscar winner, but many of his past films have abounded with shallow pseudo-conservative sensibility and overwrought style. It's therefore a pleasant surprise that the director portrays Chuck's tropical-island quarantine with wise restraint. The first 40 minutes on the island go by without any music and scarcely even a word from Hanks. Zemeckis makes the monotony of crashing waves suffocating, and in turn Hanks--with no artifice to get in the way--makes good use of his Everyman persona to make us acutely feel his isolation and despair.

Later, Chuck draws a face on a volleyball, christens it his new pal and becomes downright chatty. (This is, of course, reminiscent of another Jimmy Stewart classic, Harvey.) What could be awfully ridiculous in the hands of a lesser actor Hanks makes genuinely compelling. If there were an Oscar for "Best Performance with an Inanimate Object," Hanks would, with apologies to American Pie, soon be tearfully clutching his third golden statuette.

Unfortunately, the scenes from civilization bookending Cast Away are an unfocused bore--and they comprise nearly half the film. The script by William Broyles Jr. (Apollo 13) raises questions about our elusive grasp on time and fate, only to leave them unanswered and largely uninvestigated. And don't get me started on the obscene product placement. Zemeckis even includes a point-of-view shot from a FedEx package! If you absolutely positively have to sell out, call 1-800-HOLLYWOOD.

When it comes to fantastic tales of what might have been, after all these years Dickens and Capra still reign supreme. New holiday movies will always come and go, and many are worth a look. But there's no better time than the holidays to revisit old friends.