One of my all time favorites.

Must See Movie...

Blistering performances.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

These movies, where a workaholic business person miraculously gets switch to an alternate life, seem to come out every year. I have a strike against them to start with because they always put the person in the middle of a new life without having any memory of anything in this new life. How can that experience help them in whatever way they are supposed to need help? But I guess it is supposed to be funny. I guess this movie did it as well as any of them, a la poop diapers.The little girl was the absolute high point of this movie. She was so adorable. I'm amazed they can get a kid that age, or even looks that age, to follow directions.Probably what influenced my dislike for this movie the most is that it made Claudia so incredibly unlikeable in the first half, that I found it hard to recover from that enough to like her in the last half. And this is another case of an instant 180 degree change in personality, which I don't buy.***SPOILERS*** And I totally hate what the story did at the end. There had to be a better way. If I understand what she did as the corporation's representative correctly, she would be disbarred at the least and more likely sued for millions. Nice happy ending that way, but then that didn't happen in the movie.

A hard working attorney is shown how her life would be is she had a husband and kids. Claudia (Daphne Zuniga) is the successful trial attorney who graduated at the top of her class from Harvard Law School. She's working hard to become the first female partner within a high-powered firm. She believes her life is 'perfect'. Her sister asks her the day before to prepare for the family Thanksgiving a homemade apple pie. Claudia, however, is everything but the homemaker her sister is, and is annoyed by the request because she doesn't have 'time' for such things.Meanwhile, Claudia is directed to assist a corporate client in reversing an injunction so that it can demolish a park to build an enormous development. In order to realize this, she insists her subordinate employees work on Thanksgiving Day, because the court hearing is the day after. During this process, Claudia meets Gina (Faye Dunaway), a mysterious older woman who makes it her goal to teach Claudia some moral lessons. Gina takes Claudia to an alternative world, where Claudia is a lower profile happily married minivan-driving 'soccer mom' with two children.Claudia is perplexed by the situation she is now in, but while experiencing her new life, the way it could have been, she learns that she is missing out on a lot; despite past prejudice regarding married life, she eventually finds she's falling in love with the man to whom she is married, and she becomes accustomed to the new life she is leading. Furthermore, she grows closer to her sister. Just as she is about to settle with her new life, Gina returns to take her back. Claudia is reluctant to return to her corporate life, and thus must consider what she is most thankful for.What I hated about this film that is shows that women are not happy until they have a husband and kids. This very stupid. I think a better story line is that she breaks with her husband and would of been shown what life she will miss out on. The performances in this film are good. I just have a huge problem with the hidden message that "Women are only happy when they are married. That is insulting.

This is really a terrific film and in one respect, it reminded me of the great "It's A Wonderful Life." of 1946.A career oriented woman with no time for even thinking of a family life meets up with Faye Dunaway and when she is in a car with her, she is suddenly transported to a totally new life with a husband and 2 children.The film first deals with the hardships she faces when realizing that this is her new life, she tries desperately to provide a decent home for all concerned.She does come to realize that her life can be balanced with both family and a career. In fact, she takes on a case, but the opposite side that she was going to take when she was the dedicated career woman.Suddenly, she is transported back to her former life. While the premise may sound inane, this is a real film from the heart, showing that we can balance our lives.

It is a reasonable question to ask what Family Man would have been like if Nicholas Cage had played a workaholic career woman attorney instead of a male Wall Streeter. The producers of A Family Thanksgiving have answered that question. Don Cheadle has been recast as Faye Dunaway but Faye and the script make it a less entertaining part. The kids are older now while the spouse is a stranger instead of an old love. There are a couple nice twists to the Family Man plot. It is interesting to feel different emotional impact when the protagonist finding herself in various family situations is not a man as in Family Man. I was disappointed that the emotional peak of Family Man is missing due to one of the script differences--made me feel like I was watching a TV movie. Bottom line is I enjoyed it and intend to watch it again to examine more closely the emotional impact of the gender switch. But if you haven't seen either and can only see one, see Family Man.