A hopelessly romantic Chicago Transit Authority ticket booth operator is mistaken for the fiancée of a comatose patient.
Nursing a secret and hopeless crush on the handsome commuter who passes her booth every day, Lucy, a charming loner and Chicago Transit Authority ticket booth operator, is about to have a second chance at love. During one seemingly ordinary Christmas shift, she witnesses the object of her desire falling off the platform, and in one of those spur-of-the-moment decisions, she saves him from certain death, only to be mistaken for his fiancée at the hospital. As she enjoys the unexpected stroke of good luck, unable to tell the truth to his welcoming family, unforeseen romantic affairs further complicate matters. Now his suspicious brother, Jack, thinks he's onto something. Will Lucy face the consequences of what happened while he was sleeping?—Nick Riganas
Lucy works as a ticket booth operator at a Chicago train station. One day she saves the life of Peter, a commuter she has a crush on. He ends up in a coma and due to an error at the hospital she is identified as his fiancée. At the news of this his family takes her in and treats her as one of their own. Things gets complicated, however, when she meets Peter's brother, Jack.—grantss
All alone in the world following her long widowed father's passing a year ago and thus being lonely in the process, Lucy Eleanor Moderatz has a dead end job collecting transit tokens at a Chicago El station, she dropping out of school for this job in needing to pay his medical bills. She inherited a sense of wanderlust from him, but she has never had the opportunity to go anywhere, her current life looking like that much wanted travel won't be happening soon. Regardless, she carries around her never used passport "just in case". The one bright spot in her life is seeing the same handsome, well-dressed man come through her booth every weekday morning, she in love with him despite not even knowing anything about him, including his name. When she sees him being mugged on the station platform on Christmas morning, he lying unconscious on the tracks as a result, she, in an act of heroism, saves him from being run over by an oncoming train. In Lucy accompanying him to the hospital, the hospital administration, in a misunderstanding, believes he, highfalutin lawyer Peter Callaghan, and she are engaged. She doesn't have the opportunity to correct them when his tight-knit, working class family arrives, they, who don't see him often in he being the proverbial black sheep in living his high living, superficial life, only assuming the same about Lucy and Peter. And Peter can't correct the misunderstanding in still being in a coma. Beyond their concern for Peter, his family is overjoyed about Lucy in believing she the conduit to bring Peter back into their lives. The one person who can't see Lucy as Peter's type is his older brother, Jack Callaghan, who initially believes she is perpetrating a scam of some sort. Out to prove she isn't who she says she is in Peter's life, Jack instead starts to fall for Lucy, who, in turn starts to fall for him. The proverbial triangle grows into a square when Peter's unofficial fiancée, Ashley Bartlett-Bacon, reenters the scene. The situation will only get more complex when Peter comes out of his coma and the truth necessarily comes to light.—Huggo
In Chicago, the sweet ticket booth operator Lucy is a lonely woman since her mother died when she was a child and her father also died more recently. She has a crush on a handsome commuter named Peter who she sees every day at the station and dreams about marrying him although they don't know each other. On Christmas morning, Peter is robbed by two small-time thieves that push him on the trails and he passes out. Lucy leaves her booth and risks her life to save him from an oncoming train. She goes with him, who is in coma, to the hospital and when she asks his condition, she is not allowed to see him since she is not a relative. However, the nurse misinterprets her comment, believes she is his fiancée, and tells his family. His godfather and neighbor, Saul, overhears her talking to him in the hospital and learns the truth about their relationship, but he asks her to keep the lie since Peter's grandmother, Elsie, has a heart condition and may be affected by the truth. His family invites Lucy to spend Christmas evening with them where she meets his brother, Jack, in the beginning of a series of misunderstandings.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Lucy Moderatz (Sandra Bullock) is a lonely token collector on the Chicago Transit Authority who has a secret crush on a handsome commuter named Peter Callaghan (Gallagher).Lucy is a romantic, who was brought up on stories of love between her romantic father and her mother. For Lucy, Peter was her prince charming.
Jerry (Jason Bernard) is Lucy's dry humored boss. Jerry has Lucy work on Christmas and New Years as she has practically no friends and family.Joe Fusco Jr (Michael Rispoli) is Lucy's troublesome yet harmless neighbor who believes he invented aluminum foil. Joe is always hitting on Lucy, which she finds irritating.
On Christmas day, she rescues him from an oncoming train after a mugger pushes him onto the tracks. He falls into a coma, and she accompanies him to the hospital, where a nurse overhears her musing aloud, "I was going to marry him." Misinterpreting her, the nurse tells his family that she is his fiance. The police inform the family that Lucy jumped on the tracks to save Peter's life. At this point Peter's father Ox decides to accept Lucy as part of the family even the family had no clue that Peter was engaged. All they knew was that Peter had met a girl named Ashley in a bar and Ox considered her very high and mighty.
At first, she is too caught up in the panic to explain the truth. She winds up keeping the secret for a number of reasons: she is embarrassed, Elsie (Peter's grandmother) (Glynis Johns) has a heart condition, and she quickly comes to love being a part of Peter's big and loving family. The family includes Jack (Bill Pullman), Peter's brother who is a carpenter, Ox (Peter Boyle) the head of the Callaghan furniture business who often makes wisecracks, Midge (Micole Mercurio) an extremely passionate and soft-heart mother and Mary (Monica Keena), Peter and Jack's sister.
One night, thinking she's alone while visiting Peter, she confesses about her predicament. Unbeknownst to her, Saul (Peter's godfather) (Jack Warden) overhears the truth and later confronts her, but tells her he'll keep her secret, because the accident has brought the family closer. Saul learns that Lucy's mother died when she was very young and her father was admitted to a research center 2 years ago, and passed away 1 year ago, after a long sickness.
With no family and few friends, Lucy becomes so captivated with the quirky Callaghans and their unconditional love for her that she cannot bring herself to hurt them by revealing that Peter doesn't even know her. She spends a belated Christmas with them and then meets his younger brother Jack, who is supposed to take over his father's furniture business. He is suspicious of her at first as he doesn't believe that Peter is engaged.
Jack observes Lucy closely and finds that Joe claims that he is dating Lucy, and yet he finds Lucy in Peter's apartment feeding his cat (Lucy found a can of cat food in Peter's belongings and guessed that he had a cat and went into his apartment, while Jack had no idea that Peter had a cat).Lucy says that she met Peter 3 months ago and Jack finds it strange that they got engaged so fast. Jack confronts Lucy about Joe, and she retorts that he is delusional. Lucy had met a friend of Peter's at work, who told her how Peter lost a testicle in a basketball accident. When Lucy reveals this secret to Jack and his family, it removes all doubts.Lucy also gets lucky as the doorman in Peter's building is new and doesn't recognize Peter's fiance by name or face, but knows that he was with a woman.
Jack falls in love with Lucy as they spend time together. They develop a close friendship and soon after she falls in love with him as well.Jack says that he wants to start his own business, but since Peter already left Ox, he doesn't want to leave as well, as that would leave Ox all alone.Meanwhile, Ashley was revealed to be travelling in Lisbon. She calls Peter at his apartment one day, and leaves a message from her answering machine, saying that she accepts Peter's proposal and will marry him.
After New Year's Eve, Peter wakes up. He has no memory of Lucy, but by this time his family has become so convinced of the engagement story that they assume he must have amnesia. She and Peter spend time together, but she has already fallen in love with Jack.Peter is convinced by Saul - Peter and Jack's godfather, who knows about Lucy's secret - that Lucy must be his true love if he really proposed to her, so he does it "again". Lucy freaks out by the unexpected questions and agrees. Lucy confides in the kindly Saul, who believes that Lucy belongs in the family. Yet the elderly widower can't bring himself to tell the family about Lucy either. Lucy forces herself to be happy; she's with the man she wanted to be with her whole life.
When Jack visits her the day before the wedding, Lucy gives him a chance to change her mind, asking him if he can give her a reason not to marry Peter. He replies that he can't, leaving her disappointed.
On the day of the wedding, just as the priest begins the ceremony, Lucy finally confesses everything and tells the family she is in love with Jack rather than Peter. Ashley Bartlett Bacon (Ally Walker), Peter's real fiance (who happens to be married herself), also arrives to stop the wedding. As the family argues, Lucy slips out unnoticed, unsure of her future.
Sometime later, as Lucy collects tokens from passengers at the train station, Jack places an engagement ring in the token tray of her booth. With the entire Callaghan family watching, he walks into the toll booth and proposes to her.They kiss at the end of their wedding, then leave on a train for their honeymoon. She narrates that he fulfilled her dream of going to Florence, Italy, and explains that, when Peter asked when she fell in love with Jack, she replied, "it was while you were sleeping."
