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.
The absolute choices it forces on its hapless hero are far too mutually exclusive to be credible.
– Susan Stark,
Detroit News,
22 Dec 2000
rotten:
It's the sort of steamroller seasonal entertainment calculated to make us average folks out here feel temporarily warm and happy about our averageness.
– Geoff Pevere,
Toronto Star,
22 Dec 2000
rotten:
Too much of the movie is pure formula nonsense.
– Stephen Hunter,
Washington Post,
22 Dec 2000
rotten:
The outsize ticky tackiness of Jack's new life has been stitched together out of the broadest possible series of middle American cliches.
– Owen Gleiberman,
Entertainment Weekly,
22 Dec 2000
rotten:
A series of moments, sentimental and comic, that never do add up to a coherent fable.