They both have better lives when seperated!

You missed the point, obviously. Kate was worried about taking Annie out of the school she was attending, because it was a school that she (Annie) happened to love.

There have been 2 recessions since the movie was made. Money is fresh in everyone's mind now. Everyone is sick of working so hard to get it. When they see someone like Jack with an easy win ticket, most people would expect he should take it.

But like 3 Dog Night said "1 is the loneliest number"

He was supporting his wife and kids just fine. She did mention the kids even had college funds.

There is definitely more to life than money- if money was the big thing we would never see millionaires committing suicide.

He was going from one loveless one night stand to another and while the sex might have been good- even great-he found out it was even better when you love the person you are with.

He also fell head over heels for the kids. Yes kids can be a royal pain but they can also make you feel a love like you have never felt for ANYONE.

That's what I got from it. He and she were both starting out rich anyway at the end (when their new life began), so no doubt their kids would have been fine financially when they got older and neither of them would be struggling anyway doing what they wanted.

My problem with the film is that Hollywood doesn't think people can be happy, have morals, be rich and not want to get married and have kids (rich unmarried people are always unhappy bed hoppers in their films). They seem to be big on advertising marriage and children as the only acceptable ideal- as if they are trying to convince people to reproduce so they can have a future audience for more films like this that are just copies of other films anyway.

Agree with the arguement that in order for Jack to be as successful as he was presented in the begining of the film he had to be "married to his job."

You can't be that successful in any field without sacrificing some portion of your life somewhere else be it certain relationships or whatever.

I think what really irks me about this film, and they even make mention of it when Jack confront Don Cheadle's character, is when Jack says something to the effect of "so you ruined my life just because of what I said about being happy?" Meaning, when Don's character asked Jack what does he want and Jack said "I have everything I need." Then Don's character said "Remember Jack that you did this to yourself."

Whaaaa?

How does Jack saying that he didn't want anything from anybody makes him deserving of being "punished?"

I understand that the film needed jack's character to go through the "It's a Wonderful Life" bullspit. I just think they could have handled it in a better way.

I'm so very glad you brought those two up as examples.

Both of them were driven to succeed as younger men which enabled them to make their fortunes. hence, not much of a relationship as younger guys.

It was only AFTER they had achieved success that they THEN decided the time was right to pursue relatioship(s) which they did and they eventually settled down and got married AFTER they were ALREADY successful.

Other examples:

Mark Zuckerberg - married AFTER he was already an established billionaire.

Douchebag.. er, sorry, Donald Trump - married AFTER he established himself, then re-married since he couldn't stay faithful, so his 1st wife dumped him and took half his money.

Oprah - is she even married to Steadman or is she still jerking him around..?

And I'm sure if you do some research yourself you will also see many other examples of people (whether in film, sports, business) who married or got more serious into relationships AFTER making their career a priority.

You can't use Gates or Buffet as examples as they are wildly successful entrepreneurs who are in the vast minority (and, BTW, didn't become family men until after they were successful).

Most people who want to succeed at their careers are employees, not entrepreneurs, and to become wealthy in those careers they have to work 60+ hours a week and show that nothing comes before the company. Not holidays, not vacations, not family. Anything less and you're going to be forever stuck in the middle class, not that there's anything wrong with that but it certainly isn't wealthy. No employee has ever gotten rich working forty hours a week unless it was through stock options they held onto for fifty years.

"Nothing is more ill bred than trying to steal the affections of someone else's dog."