Our culture pays a lot of lip service to the idea that family and relationships are more important than work and careers – think of the well-worn saying, “No one ever wished on his death bed that he spent more time at work.”

 

Isn’t it ironic, then, that just this week news reports indicated Americans take less vacation – less time out to relax and reconnect to loved ones – than any other industrialized culture?

 

Adam Sandler’s new movie, Click, arrives then as a parable for our time – the story of a workaholic architect whose efforts to provide for his family lead him to neglect that same family.  His character, Michael Newman, captures the essence of his life when he tells his wife, “I wanna be with you every minute of my life – and that’s why I’ve gotta leave right now.”

 

As Michael strives to work his way up the corporate ladder, he finds himself torn between the demands of home and a demanding boss (David Hasselhoff), and consistently makes the wrong choice between them.  Through the magic of film fantasy, he is offered a chance to look forward through his life to discover just how much these accumulated choices will cost him.

 

The movie’s basic trajectory is the same as that of classic movies like A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life – domestic fantasies in which the hero is forced through magical forces to re-examine his (or her) priorities.  Several recent movies (The Family Man, 13 Going on 30, and so on) have also mined this productive fantasy.

 

The vehicle for the film’s fantasy, its humor, and ultimately Michael’s painful passage of self-discovery, is a truly universal remote – a remote control that controls the universe itself.  So, he can place the rest of the world on hold while he finishes a crucial job for work – or fast forward through boring or distracting periods.

 

The remote captures our national obsession with technology as well as our desire to have it all.  I mean, who hasn’t wished they could stop the world while they regrouped?

 

That’s where the wrong choices come in.  Given such a device, would we use it to get more work done – or spend more time with our families? 

 

And what a family Michael has.  His wife (Kate Beckinsale) is gorgeous; his kids are cute as buttons, especially daughter Samantha (Tatum McCann), a walking giggle machine.  His parents (Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner) are funny and loving, if sometimes an embarrassment to their son (but isn’t that parents’ job?).

 

Morty (Christopher Walken, in a surprisingly “normal” performance for this notoriously creepy actor), the mysterious figure who gives Michael the remote, warns him to be careful what he does with it.  Does he listen?

 

Do you have to ask?  Of course, he misuses it.  And ultimately, he comes to recognize the errors of his ways, passing a final judgment on himself: “You’re pathetic.”

 

It all adds up to a funny, often sentimental film that could – but probably won’t – serve as an antidote to our collective workaholism.  Take some time off to see it.

 

(One caution, though – this is, after all, an Adam Sandler movie, so prepare for some crude humor.  Fart jokes and sexual innuendo are part of the package.)

      

 This review appeared in the Aberdeen American News on June 25,  2006.

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This page last updated on August 15, 2006.