Thank you, Clarence, by MAB.

This entry in our month of alternate reality tales doesn’t just goof up the plot with some unspecified sorcery or a random magical doohickey. No, in this story, the magic gets a little boost from that old storytelling technique I like to call “misplaced Christmas sentimentality.”

Why you should read this: You love the movie “The Family Man” so much you’re willing to put up with a strange retelling.  You’ve always thought Mr. Darcy might sort-of resemble Nicolas Cage. Just a bit, in the chin? You’re the kind of person who can overlook any plot hole, large or small, so long as the story happens at Christmas.

Why you might not like it: You’ve seen The Family Man.  You’ve read Pride & Prejudice. You have no need to combine them. Ever.

Modern, AU, Adult, Complete at AHA.

It is entirely possible that I am a heartless automaton without a trace of sentimentality. As proof, I offer these facts: Miss Kenton does not cry at Hallmark commercials.  Also, Miss Kenton hates kittens and puppies.

Thus, Thank you, Clarence, is probably not the kind of story I have any business reading, as it relies entirely on two particular gimmicks: The Unbearable Pain of Lost Love and The Unassailable Truth That Children Make Everything Amazing.

Let’s start with the first. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know that the protagonist of The Family Man is a lonely, filthy rich executive who is pretty much a jerk to everyone he meets.  A long time ago, he broke up with his girlfriend so he could move to London and become a filthy rich executive jerk.  Girlfriend calls and leaves him a message, he meets a homeless dude and wakes up in an alternate life, where Girlfriend is suddenly Wife, and they have tiny kids.  Filthy Rich Executive Jerk becomes Middle Class Middle Manager Jerk until he Sees The Error of His Ways.

Thank you, Clarence keeps the basic premise of the movie, but like most Austenfic, adds in a heaping dose of Regret and Pining, along with Unnecessary Backstory. So, Darcy’s a jerk, but he’s only a jerk because he wants so badly to be married to Elizabeth! If only he could have another chance!

Turns out, all Darcy has to do is fall asleep. Once he wakes up and is instantly healed of all jerky behaviors via really great sex, he’s an awesome dad and perfect husband… and all of it on Christmas morning! It’s like his other life never existed, except, actually, it did, because in Thank you, Clarence, Darcy doesn’t wake up as an unhappy middle class tire store manager, but as… himself. A filthy rich executive. He’s excised the jerk, but he didn’t have to be poor to do it! Look at what the Love of a Good Woman can do!  Wowzers!

Then there are the Darcy children. They conform to all the rules of Fictional Darcy Progeny: harbor absurd levels of precociousness, are always perfectly behaved, are never an unwelcome interruption, and teach Valuable Life Lessons to their parents. Remember the TV show Small Wonder? Darcy children are basically Vicki clones, just with Elizabeth Bennet’s eyes.

Speaking of Elizabeth, she is in this story too! Those robot clones need a mother, you know!  In fact, they need a mother who not only is the Best Mom Ever, she easily manages to maintain a work-life balance that makes everyone happy– always nearby when her cyborg children need her, constantly interested in having sex with her no-longer-a-jerk husband, and able to hold down a job that addresses the injustices of domestic abuse!  Who needs feminism, ladies? Elizabeth Bennet proves we can have it all.

(In case it wasn’t clear, this, more than anything else, situates this story wholly within the fantasy genre.)

With all of this domestic perfection, it’s understandable that Darcy doesn’t want to wake up. Alas, he does–and not in the arms of Elizabeth! Oh noes! It was all a dream!

It’s a good thing that Darcy learned all those lessons about how not to be a jerk while he was asleep, because now that he’s awake, Darcy has all kinds of opportunities to practice being a really nice, filthy rich executive.

So of course, he fails spectacularly.

To sum up these failures, let’s leave it at this: whenever a single woman appears in this story, Darcy acts with little to no respect for them. This applies doubly for those women who happen to be at an airport at any point in this story.

The whole thing ends with the kind of resolution you’d expect from a Hallmark movie or commercial, so I will leave you to imagine my reaction to that.

Lest you think I really am heartless, you should know that I don’t blame the author for all of these plot shenanigans. After all, Thank you, Clarence is a crossover, so whomever is responsible for The Family Man also has some explaining to do. However, it probably wasn’t the best choice for a P&P mash-up. Especially not a short one.

(Cross it with, say, Persuasion, and we’ll have something to discuss. That is a story with some Regret and Pining.)

Now, as we have previously seen in this ratings-and-review business, even a terrible story can be helped along by technically good writing. Well, readers, this is not one of those situations.

Perhaps the story was written quickly, so I will extend some grace (you see, I just took a nap and had a dream wherein a kitten told me to stop being a jerk about grammar). However, I find I cannot overlook all the edits this piece needs. Misspellings (“an illusive hallucination” might be my favorite) and strange constructions abound. Here’s one, from the beginning of the story:

Walking across the sidewalk, his coat collar flipped up against a cold blast from the East River he with a shock he felt himself knocked off balance, the wind knocked out of him, an immovable object rammed into his body. As he fell through time and space he watched the angle of the sky become disoriented and he experienced light-headedness as never before. With his posterior on the ground, he felt the wind claw at his body and he scrambled for control of his senses. Before he could maneuver himself aright a hand presented itself midway between his chest and his head.

Was the wind the immovable object that was rammed into his body? Can the sky become disoriented? How does a hand present itself?  Is “midway between the chest and the head” an actual location?

I fear these questions will simply have to remain unanswered.  Alas, if you absolutely must read a Family Man crossover fic, may I instead point you in the direction of the one that our own dear Oofy has already reviewed?