Nov. 03, 2005

‘The Weather Man’ is a ray of sunshine in the rain

By JEREMY KOPP and
PHILIP LEMASTER

koppj@marietta.edu and pcl001@marietta.edu
Philip: ‘The Weather Man’ stars Nicolas Cage as David Spritz, a Chicago weather man (surprise!) on the verge of a breakdown. His Pulitzer Prize-winning father (Michael Caine) receives a dire prognosis, and his ex-wife (Hope Davis) wants nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, his son is being preyed upon by a pedophile, and his young, overweight daughter works her way through a pack of cigarettes per day. Struggling with all this, David tries to break free of his life dominated by pelted burritos, milkshakes, and apple pies by getting hired as a nationwide meteorologist out of New York.

Director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) presents a surprisingly mature film centering on Cage’s distraught, imperfect character. Cage brings a dry, witty humor to the film, but I was most enamored with his daughter, who, after being teased, naively misinterprets the names she was called. Michael Caine simply plays himself, much like he does in all his films, and Hope Davis brings a great bitchy ex-wife vibe to the screen.
Simply put, the film runs just a little long and contains several subplots, one of which involves his son and really serves no purpose but to add a nice father-son bonding time with some corndogs. Visually, the movie is beautiful as it equates the frigid Chicago wintertime to Spritz’s life, but all in all, ‘The Weather Man’ is a great pre-Oscar season film and proves that Nicolas Cage still has some shred of dignity after ‘National Treasure.’

Jeremy: My mom likes Nicholas Cage. She also has conservative tastes, and enjoys cheery, happy movies. So when she had told me that she was planning on seeing ‘The Weather Man’ last weekend, I was happy I had beaten her to it and was able to convince her to check out the new Zorro movie instead.

‘The Weather Man’ is like an art film with a big budget; an offbeat dark dramedy that contradicts the film’s more upbeat (and misleading) ads. It’s surprisingly vulgar, but mostly in good taste, because Verbenski and screenwriter Steve Conrad never belittle the Spritz family’s flaws. Instead, they find humor in a topic where there is typically none – the dysfunctional family – and brighten the movie’s mood as a result.

Here we have another Nick Cage performance in which he’s consumed with depression and anger, always wearing that concerned, troubled expression that just screams, “I’ve seen better days!” Or we’d at least like to think that he has, given that Dave’s ex-wife has moved on and he has not, his dying father is casually unimpressed by any of his accomplishments, he has difficulty getting through to his daughter, and his naïve son has befriended a pedophile (which, as Philip mentioned, is an uncomfortable subplot that runs on for a wee bit longer than it should have).
But let’s face it, Dave’s a dick: he refuses to do autographs, he publicly blurts streams of obscenities when he’s outraged, and in one of his most pathetic actions, uses a glove to slap his ex-wife’s boyfriend across the face. He’s paid a large sum for 2 hours of work per day (he’s not even a meteorologist; he simply reports what he reads off of news service wires), and mopes and dopes about when the rest of life doesn’t come as easily.

So watching this tragic hero attempt to better himself is a sort of refreshing experience, even if it doesn’t turn out all hunky-dory for him in the end. In fact, I can’t recall the last time a major studio released this big of a “downer.” But by no means is this a bad thing, especially since The Weather Man’ suggests that even during the cloudiest days, we still have the sunnier ones to look forward to.