THE FAMILY MAN [2000]

What If...


 You wanna do something great, Jack?
Let's flush the plan, let's start our lives right now, today.
I have no idea what this life is gonna look like, but I know that it has the both of us in it.
And I choose us.
The plan doesn't make us great, Jack.
What we have together, that's what makes us great.
~Kate

Jack: Hey, Peter, let me ask you a question.
An old girlfriend calls you out of the blue on Christmas eve, what do you do?
Peter: You suddenly having trouble getting dates?
Jack: Yeah...
Peter: Leave it in the past.
Old flames are like old tax returns. Put 'em in the file cabinet for 3 years.

Cash: This man thinks I need to be saved, yo!
Jack: Everybody needs something.
Cash: Yeah? Well, what do you need, Jack?
Jack: Me?
Cash: Yeah. You just said that everybody needs something.
Jack: I got everything I need.
Cash: Wow, it must be great being you.
Jack: I'm not saying that you'd be able to do it without some hard works, honest hard works, and possibly some medicine.
Cash, chuckles: I'm gonna really enjoy this.
You just remember that you did this, Jack, okay?
You brought this on yourself.
Merry Christmas.

Cash: The way you intervened in the store last night, you did a good thing there, Jack.
It was incredibly impressive.
Jack: Please just tell me what's happening to me, in English, without the mumbo-jumbo.
Cash: This is a glimpse, Jack.
Jack: A glimpse? A glimpse of what?
Cash: You're gonna have to figure that out for yourself. You've got plenty of time.
Jack: How much time?
Cash: As much time as it takes, which in your case is probably gonna be considerable.
Jack: Okay, look, I just want my life back, okay?
What's it gonna take? You wanna talk turkey? Let's turkey. How much money?
Cash: It doesn't work like that and I can't tell you why.
Jack: Why not?
Cash: Because you have to figure this thing out for yourself.
Are you listening to me?
Jack: Figure it out... figure it out what?
Cash: Let it come to you, man.

Arnie: Look, you fit the profile exactly in your 30's, house, kids, financial responsibilities.
You start thinking this isn't the life I thought about.
Where's the romance, you know?
Where's the joie de vivre?
Suddenly every lingerie ad in the Newark Star-Ledger represents a life that you can't have.
Jack: It's just 2 kids, right?
Arnie: All right, sometimes it feels like you gave up the whole world, I know that.
But look what you got! [point to the house] Look at that!
4 bedrooms, 2-and-half baths, a partially finished basement, and good kids.
You know what? You probably don't wanna hear this right now.
Remember last summer when I almost had that thing with our engineers staff, you remember what you said to me?
You said, "Don't screw up the best thing in your life, just because you're a little unsure about who you are."

Annie: Promise you won't kidnap me and my brother and plant stuff in our brains?
Jack: Sure.
Annie, smiling: Welcome to Earth.

Jack: Oh, God, you're beautiful.
Kate: Thanks, Jack.
Jack: No, I'm serious.
You're really stunning.
Kate: This is good stuff. I want you to keep this up.
Jack: You were always a very pretty girl in college, no question about that.
But this, you've really grown to the beautiful woman.
Kate: How can you do that?
Jack: What?
Kate: Look at me like you haven't seen me every day for the last 13 years.

Jack: Do you have any idea what my life is like?
I wake up in the morning covered in...
I drop the kids off, spend 8 hours selling tires retail. Retail, Kate.
I pick the kids up, walk the dog, which by the way, carries the added bonus of carting away her monstrous crap.
I play with the kids, take out the garbage, get 6 hours of sleep if I'm lucky, then everything starts all over again.
So what's in it for me?
Kate: You know, it's sad to hear that your life is such a disappointment.
Jack: I can't believe it isn't a disappointment to you!
Jesus, Kate, I could have been a thousand times the man I became.
I could have been one of the richest Forbes...
How could you do this for me? How could you let me give up on my dreams like this?
Really, I want to know...
Kate: Who are you?
Jack: All right, look, I'm sorry.
Maybe I'm not the same guy that I was when I got married.
Kate: Maybe you're not.
Because the Jack Campbell I married would not need $2,400 suit to feel better about his life.
But if that's what it's gonna take it, buy it!

Jack: I just sometimes wonder how we ended up here.
I mean, back in the college, did you see us here?
Kate: Life has thrown us a few surprises.

Jack: So we had a baby, Big Ed had a heart attack, bought that house and I've been working for ever since.
Sayonara Wall Street.
Our life in a nutshell.
Kate: If you want to look at it that way.
Jack: How would you look at it?
Kate: A great success story.

Jack: I just saw Evelyn Thompson.
Arnie: She's relentless.
Jack: She wants to have an affair with me.
Arnie: She said that?
Jack: Pretty much.
Arnie: What is it about you?
Jack: So, if you would write her exact address down there, please...
Arnie: Whoa, whoa, whoa... hold on a second.
You're not actually thinking about cheating on Kate, are you?
Jack: Well, it wouldn't really be cheating, Arnie. It's complicated.
Arnie: Maybe I haven't been as good a consigliere as you've been to me, but listen to me,
a little flirtation is harmless, but you're dealing with fire here, man.
The Fidelity Bank & Trust is a tough creditor.
You make a deposit somewhere else, they close your account forever, all right?
Jack: Arnie, I don't want your head to explode,
but I'm telling you, those rules don't apply to me.
Arnie: I'm not talking about rules, Jack.
I'm talking about... you're...
There isn't a guy in Union County who wouldn't to be with Kate.
She's amazing, and you're gonna fuck it up.
Just think about that, all right?

Kate: I think about it too. I do.
I wonder about what kind of life I would have had if I hadn't married to you.
Jack: And?
Kate: And then I realize I've just erased all the things in my life that I'm sure about.
 You and the kids.
Jack: Good things.
Kate: Yeah.
What are you sure about?
Jack: I'm sure that right now, there's nowhere else I'd rather be than here with you.

My God, all this time, I never stopped loving you.
~Jack Campbell

Jack: I need to do that as a man. For all of us.
Please just think about this for one second.
No more lousy restaurants.
No more clipping coupons.
No more shoveling snow.
Kate: Then get a goddamn snowblower, Jack!
Don't go get a new career without even telling me about it.
And don't take Annie out of school she loves.
Don't move us out of a house we've become a family in.
Jack: I'm talking about us, finally having a life that other people envy.
Kate: Oh, Jack, they already do envy us.

When you got on that plane, I was sure it was over.
I left the airport afraid I'd never see you again.
And then you showed up the very next day.
That was a good surprise.
You know, I think about the decision you made.
Maybe I was being naive, but I believed that we would grow old together in this house,
that we'd spend holidays here and have our grandchildren come visit us here.
I had this image of us all gray and wrinkly,
and me, working in the garden, and you repainting the deck.
But things change.
If you need this, Jack, if you really need this,
I will take these kids from a life they love, 
and I'll take myself from the only home we've ever shared together,
and I'll move wherever you need to go.
I'll do that because I love you.
I love you, and that's more important to me than our address.
I choose us.
~Kate

Jack: I'm not going back, you understand me?
You can't do this.
You can't keep coming in and out of people's lives, messing things up, it's not right.
Cash: A glimpse by definition, is an impermanent thing, Jack.

Jack: I need you to remember me, Kate.
How I am right now, at this very moment.
I need you to put that image in your heart.
Keep it with you no matter what happens.
Kate: Are you okay?
Jack: Yeah.
Please just promise me.
You have to promise me, because if you don't, I don't think I can live with that.
Kate: I promise.
Jack: Promise me again.
Kate: I promise.

We have a house in Jersey.
We have 2 kids, Annie and Josh.
Annie's not much of a violin player, but she's try real hard.
She's a little precocious, but that's only because she said what's in her mind.
And when she smiles...
And Josh, he has your eyes.
He doesn't say much, but we know he's smart.
He's always got his eyes open, he's always watching us.
Sometimes you can look at him and you just know he's learning something new.
It's like witnessing a miracle.
The house is a mess, but it's ours.
After 122 more payments, it's going to be ours.
And you, you're a non-profit lawyer.
That's right, you're completely non-profit.
But that doesn't seem to bother you.
And we're in love.
After 13 years of marriage, we're still unbelievably in love.
You won't even let me touch you till I've said it.
I sing to you.
Not all the time, but definitely on special occasions.
And we've dealt with our share of surprises and made a lot sacrifices, but we stayed together.
You're a better person than I am, and it made me a better person to be around you.
Maybe it was all just a dream.
Maybe I went to bed one lonely night and I imagined it all, 
but I swear, nothing's ever felt more real.
And if you get on that plane right now, it'll disappear forever.
I know we could both go on with our lives, but I've seen what we could be like together.
And I choose us.
~Jack Campbell





 
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