Comfort and Joy (2003)

Perfect cast and a good story

One of my all time favorites.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

After a mishap on the road, single advertising vice-president Nancy McKeon (as Jane Berry) finds herself married, with children. All mixed up, Ms. McKeon has apparently landed ten years in the future. You won't know what's going on until the end, but you may have seen this story before. They're calling it "situational amnesia." McKeon has traded her male model-type boyfriend for snuggly Steven Eckholdt (as Sam Keller), the director of a drug and alcohol center for the homeless. McKeon's work has become mothering two cute kids, cooking, cleaning and volunteering for churchy Connecticut groups. Funniest scenes involve bickering parents Paul Dooley and Dixie Carter (as George and Frederica Berry). Most tired scene involves McKeon's Jewish pal and four swishy Christmas chums watching "Sunset Boulevard" with Gloria Swanson. She's right, "It's the pictures that got small." **** Comfort and Joy (12/1/03) Maggie Greenwald ~ Nancy McKeon, Steven Eckholdt, Dixie Carter, Paul Dooley

I watched this dribble and I found it a mess. It is very confusing. The whole thing is about a woman who has a car accident and while momentarily unconscious, dreams about her life with someone she always had a crush on. When she awakens, who should rescue her, but her Prince Charming of all people, and they sort of go off into the sunset and begin the life together she dreamed about. Just like that; no questions, nothing. Mind you, the man who rescues her, just placidly and calmly opens her car door. After this terrific crash, she has only a bruise on her forehead. No ambulance, no hospital, no confusion. He doesn't think she is some kind of a nut, but sort of goes along with it. I watched this crap, and that is what it is. The music is so juvenile and so overbearing and interferes with the already horrible and stiff acting. The movie was almost unwatchable. The scene with the parents is totally contrived, the the actor who plays the father is miscast. Dixie Carter is at her worst. The actor who plays Steve is stiff and totally wooden and hollow. The main character, doesn't seem to be able to pull it together with this plot. You can see, even she acts by the numbers. It is totally unrealistic. I repeat: the acting was so horrible, it was like an amateur production. It sort of has a moral about not desiring the materialistic, and this borders on the Christmas theme, but, it is one of the worst movies imaginable. Totally unrealistic and immature. Horrible acting and just ridiculous. Dribble and awful acting.

If you have seen the 2000 Nicholas Cage/Tea Leoni holiday comedy, "Family Man," then you have seen a much better version of a story similar to this movie, "Comfort and Joy." In "Family Man," Nicholas Cage plays the businessman who's 'gaurdian angel' magically plants him into the life of a middle-class suburban tire salesman husband/father. Though bizarre and confusing is this sudden new life that he experiences without much explanation of how he got there, he wades through it for several days to find out that in the end, the life he could of had (the life which he is briefly supplanted in) is much better than the life he did have."Comfort and Joy" is nearly the same thing. The main character (Nancy McKeonm, already a Lifetime TV regular) gets into a car accident and, when she recovers, thinks she is actually living ten years in the past. She doesn't recognize that the man and two kids before her are her husband and kids, and she can't figure out exactly why everyone keeps caller her mom. Same idea as the "Family Man," only much more nauseatingly "cutesy" as most Lifetime TV holiday repeats tend to me. The only real plus to this recycled story line is that Paul Dooley and Dixie Carter show up for a few amusing moments as the woman's parents.If you're into overly sentimental holiday dramas, then this is a good one for you. Otherwise, I'd say skip it.

Let's see, we have a workaholic overachiever who we just know is going to learn a big lesson about how she should want a husband and children because that is just the be-all, end-all of a woman's existence. Okay, it's not that sexist. But the way this TV movie goes about presenting the concept of a fulfilling personal life over career have barely a whiff of originality. The husband and kids, whether real or imagined, are so wholesome you just want to shoot them. But the absolute worst was a scene in which McKeon's character shows up at a get-together with four gay men, who are the gay version of minstrels. This cartoon-like depiction was the point at which I knew that there would be nothing redeeming about this. It's just another shameless plot line implying that a woman must choose between career and family. (Let's just say the suspense won't be killng you as to which lifestyle comes out on top.)