I used to love reading Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was a kid. In these books, the reader is the protagonist and makes his own decisions every couple of pages about what will happen next in the story. Choices like: Will you: a) Pick up the forbidden amulet in front of you and exit the crypt? or b) Enjoy the witch doctors hospitality by partaking in the bubbling beverage?

Depending on the choice you make, you are told to turn to page 82, where you're whisked toward more dilemmas that await your decisions. The movie The Family Man, starring Nicholas Cage and Tea Leoni, is a Choose Your Own Adventure of sorts. In the film, Jack Campbell (Cage) has the pages in his book of life flipped back to see what his life could have been like. How would his life have been different had he married his college girlfriend Kate (Leoni), instead of kissing her goodbye for good when he left to study abroad?

Thirteen years after the breakup, Jack is a Wall Street tycoon who's long forgotten his old flame — a playboy who's promiscuous without conscience, drives a Ferrari, and makes his employees work on Christmas. Then, when he wakes up on Christmas morning, he's transported, via an It's A Wonderful Life form of benevolent magic, to how his life would have been had he married Kate. Suddenly Jack has been married for thirteen years and minivans, poopy diapers, and bowling trophies are his reality. His life as the Great White shark of business is long gone. On Wall St. he sealed deals worth hundreds of billions, and now he's a salesman at Big Ed's Tires in New Jersey, explaining the relative merits of Mag wheels. From Wall Street magnate to fridge magnets — Jack is getting a "glimpse" of what could have been.

And it's during this "glimpse" that The Family Man gets interesting. Jack's playboy rich guy character is so cliché in films that some people who've seen too many movies have been deluded into thinking it should be their reality. But in this movie, the playboy stuff serves as a setup, not the main plot. Therefore, when Jack is planted into this "normal" life, married to the same woman, with two kids and a dog — we see a man who's wealthy beyond comprehension interact with the reality of "the rest of us" — and he hates it.

When Jack enters his predetermined domestic arrangement there are some genuinely funny moments. When he, a man of exquisite taste and refinement, opens his closet and reveals corduroy suit coats and 80's sweaters, I had to laugh. The humor worked because I could identify with it — many of us men have clothes closets that resemble locker rooms — dirty socks here, sweat stains there...Men of this sort have learned not to care how they look, usually out of necessity, for one of two reasons. Either we're genuinely clueless about how to dress, or the expense of being dapper isn't worth the savings of looking dowdy.

The makers of The Family Man said that it's a "modern day homage to classic films" and this is an accurate description. If you've seen It's a Wonderful Life, this movie might have a strangely familiar feel. Also, the values promoted by The Family Man have much in line with those of the classics. Selfless love, marriage, and fidelity aren't portrayed as hokey and unrealistic ideals that went out of style with the 40-hour workweek. Rather, they are shown as timeless truths worth striving for.

One "classic" value portrayed in The Family Man is that Jack and Kate are good parents. Writer Andy Fletcher has made the point that it's nearly impossible to find a film where parents are not portrayed as either absent, cruel, or bumbling idiots who need their kids to save them from their circumstances. Home Alone and The Parent Trap are a couple of prime examples of this reality. In The Family Man, Jack and Kate are mature, hardworking adults who love one another and share the duties of parenting. Parenting isn't a theme of the movie, but it's presented as a challenging joy that is an honorable undertaking.

The intimate love that Jack experiences in his marriage softens his hardness toward this new life. He learns that love between a husband and wife isn't as stuffy, but vivacious. In his bachelor days, he was accustomed to fast and loose living, but was lonely and miserable. And while a freewheeling bachelor may think it's confining to be with just one woman, Kate genuinely adores Jack. She's proud of him, and does her best to put his needs above her own — even when he doesn't deserve this kind of treatment.

The more Jack experiences true love, a healthy marriage, and the joys of having children, the more he doesn't want to let it go. He and Kate are playful and romantic, he sings to her on special occasions, and she makes it clear to him that she will follow him wherever he leads her. In these scenes, The Family Man is a warm, funny, and accessible romantic comedy that is poignant and sweet. It made me happy to be married and thankful for my wife.

The Family Man does promote positive values, but note that its makers did say that it is a "modern day homage" to classic films. First of all, there's a gratuitous bit of partially obscured nudity that would've never shown up in any Jimmy Stewart movie. Also, it's clear, although not visually explicit, that Jack and Kate have a healthy sex life. On one hand, this positive portrayal of sex in marriage is contrary to most Hollywood messages — sex in a healthy marriage is exciting, not drab and boring. But on the other hand Jack and Kate are so frisky that it becomes gratuitous through overemphasis.

The messages put forth by this movie are so pro-family that by the time Jack is transported back to his Ferrari, his penthouse in Manhattan, and his high-rolling lifestyle, the audience is disappointed. We've seen where Jack has been — he's been a tire salesman in New Jersey, he's picked up dog poop, he's been in a bowling league — and we want him to go back! Ah, how Hollywood manipulates us with its celluloid heroes ...

Jack didn't have the material possessions, or people serving his every whim when he was the family man. But he was really living. And when he returns to his Wall Street reality, he's a changed man, who now needs to live every day by making choices that will determine his future. Isn't it interesting that people, whether followers of Christ or not, recognize that man and woman were created to be together as husband and wife, not to live life in the fast lane. The Family Man doesn't just recognize this reality — it revels in it.