The Weather Man

A well-known film critic came into the store the other day with a lot of unopened DVD's to trade in. He must get them for free through the studios or something. Anyway, he traded them in and we made a bunch of rentals, which is how I got to see this film and a few others that won't come out for a few more months early.

I got into kind of a disagreement with this critic (and, no, I won't say which one...) Not an argument, as I make it a policy not to argue with the customers, but simply a disagreement. He began by praising Steve Martin an d the new Pink Panther remake. He said that, while not the equal of Peter Sellers or the best entries in the series, that the new film was extremely funny and worthwhile. This, I found hard to believe. But most offensive was his movement directly from raving about Pink Panther into railing on Steven Spielberg and Munich. I mean, come on. This guy is a nationally-respected film critic. He reviews movies for a living. And he really thinks Steve Martin warrants generous press for ripping off old Blake Edwards movies while Spielberg deserves only contempt for trying to make a bold artistic statement?

basically, this critic, a man who is paid to interpret and analyze movies by a real publication, was content to just repeat the conventional wisdom about Munich while raving effusively about the latest vehicle of an overpaid, over-the-hill movie star.

I bring this incident up here at the front of this Weather Man review because the unnamed film critic and the titular forecaster of the film share the same dilemma. They work a job that is both extremely easy and lucrative. Now, the film critic who came into the store seemed fine with his situation, but the Weather Man in the movie has found that the endless reward for very little work has left him feeling empty inside. Gore Verbinski's exceptionally dark, dry comedy explores the midlife crisis of a man who slowly realizes he's living a shallow, meaningless existence and then seeks to remedy that situation.

The movies love characters like this. I'm reminded of Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, the money-and-power-hungry sports agent who discovers one day that, aw shucks, he really just wants to work with people and raise a family. Or consider Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, the suburban dad who has been walking around dead inside, numbed to the world, for years who starts looking closer at the little wonders all around him.

My contention is that these films are pure fantasy: you're either a shallow asshole who doesn't think about anything but your own immediate comfort and lustful desires, or you're someone a bit more introspective and thoughtful who is constantly questioning and yearning for something more. I don't know that circling 40 or having a parent die or developing a crush on your daughter's cheerleader best friend or whatever happens in these movies is ever enough to motivate a closed-off individual to suddenly open up to all that life has to offer.



But what do I know? Movies are about conflict and the changes that result from conflict, so the lead character can't exactly remain the same from beginning to end, even if he starts the film as a shallow asshole. And that basically sums up Dave Spritz (Nicholas Cage). A weather man for a Chicago TV station, Dave has managed to alienate his family through years of self-centered, emotionally distant behavior and good old fashioned neglect. His cancer-stricken novelist father (Michael Caine, affecting a tight, clipped American accent that doesn't really suit him) thinks he's a putz. His ex-wife (Hope Davis) wants less and less to do with him with every passing day. He's depressed 12 year old daughter (Gemmennee de la Pena) has taken up smoking and developed a weight problem. And his 15 year old son (Nicholas Hoult) apparently is undergoing counseling for a drug problem, despite seemingly like a pretty wholesome, well-adjusted kid throughout the film.

Cage gives a pretty terrific performance as Dave, a complete sad-sack who allowed relative wealth and low-level fame to distract him from the fact that he's a total loser who nobody likes. In fact, it's too good a performance for the rest of the film. Director Gore Verbinski clearly wants the audience to root for Dave, to cringe when obnoxious fans plaster him with fast food on the Chicago streets and to cheer when he gets an audition for a spot on a nationally-syndicated morning show doing the weather.

But Dave's a bit too awkward and peculiar a guy to really like. Often, his callow behavior makes little to no sense, as he explains at times in the mainly-unneccessary and frequent voice-over. In one scene, out of nowhere, Dave slaps a man who has become involved with his ex-wife, with a glove. It's a funny moment, and the voice-over that follows (in which Dave explains that slapping a man with a glove is not a good way to garner respect in the modern world) is amusing, but it's also pretty insane. In another scene, Dave aims a bow-and-arrow at his ex-wife and his father during a family get-together. Yikes.

Now lack of likability, that I can deal with. Plenty of movies have pulled off a prickly main character, from Ghost World to Sideways. The entire point of Steve Conrad's script is Dave's transformation from selfish, panicky idiot into a capable, grown-ass man, so I could tolerate a bit of adolescent behavior and self-pity in the opening hour. But it's Dave's ridiculous naivete that ultimately make him an unsympathetic hero.

Has it really taken him over a decade to discover that being a weather man is not really a noble calling? Dave's a college grad, he apparently dreams of a career as a novelist like his father. He never realized before that maybe being a weather man was going to become unfulfilling over time? The thought that he, Weatherman Dave Spritz, was kind of a joke to people is a shocking revelation?

As I mentioned, Dave's fans (and non-fans, I suppose) tend to pelt him with fast-food products in public (often while yelling "Hey Weather Man!") He offers several theories as to why they might throw things at him, but eventually settles on the obvious - he is a clown, there for people's amusement, and nothing more. Because being a Weather Man is a meaningless, silly job. There's no real way to predict the weather, anyway, so it's just a moderately good-looking man with a bad haircut who is comfortable on camera, pointing at a map and guessing as to what the winds will do.

So people react accordingly.

The movie tries to get metaphorical mileage, by the way, out of this whole concept of the weather being this mysterious, unknowable force. The future is out there, and no one knows how the winds will blow. Ooooohhh, it's deep!

Okay, that stuff is pretty clumsy, but I don't want to be too hard on the movie. It's entertaining enough, and it's fun to see Caine and Cage together. One scene, for reasons I'll leave unsaid here, finds Dave's elderly father explaining to him the concept of a "cameltoe." Now, that's comedy.

And, like all of Verbinksi's films, The Weather Man remarkably well-shot and polished. Phedon Papamichael's icy-blue cinematography really captures the bitter cold of a Chicago winter, particularly the opening shots of a frozen-over Lake Michigan. It's at times reminiscent of Verbinski's The Ring, if a bit less creepy and more bright.

To his immense credit, Verbinski insisted to the studio that the film shoot on location in Chicago as opposed to Canada, and the frenzied shots of Cage hauling ass across Madison Street with Chocolate Frostee on his jacket alone were worth the additional funds. Unthinkably, it's becoming rare to see a big American city depicted realistically in an American film. I understand, it's kind of expensive to shoot on location in places like Chicago, but come on! Just pay J.Lo a few million less, okay?