The Weather Man (2005)
Directed by Gore Verbinski
Written by Steve Conrad
Starring Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis, Michael Rispoli
Release Date October 28th, 2005
Published October 28th, 2005
It is only very recently that I have become a big Nicolas Cage fan. I loved his Oscar winning work in Leaving Las Vegas but his subsequent descent into action stardom was marred by some seriously awful work in Con Air, The Rock, 8mm and Gone In 60 Seconds. He won me back a little with his extraordinary work in Scorsese's Bringing Out The Dead but that was almost forgotten in the midst of Cage's weepy period with City of Angels, Family Man and Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
Right now, however, Cage has hit a stride that is remarkable. Pushing aside the subpar blockbuster National Treasure, Cage's run of Adaptation, Matchstick Men, Lord of War and now The Weather Man is one of the greatest series of performances by one actor in movie history. Forget the bad box office, when Cage is teamed with great people and great material there may not be a better actor working today.
Dave Spritz (Nicolas Cage) is Chicago's number one weather man. His 'Spritz nipper' has fans across the windy city stopping him on the street to ask him which will be the chilliest day of the week. Of course not everyone is a fan of Dave's. On more than one occasion Dave has found himself on the wrong side of some flying food items including a shake, a box of McNuggets, even a burrito.
Dave attributes the food throwing to the fact that he is paid a lot of money to do a job that is not that difficult. He is paid high six figures plus appearance fees, works two hours a day and did not even have to get a degree in meteorology. The food items are essentially karmic payback for a way too easy path through life, and, more to the point, a reaction to how often Dave simply gets it wrong weatherwise.
Dave is a serious case of arrested development. He has never really accomplished anything. His father, Robert (Michael Caine), on the other hand, is a Pulitzer prize winning novelist and a wonderful father to boot despite the fact that his son is a very obvious disappointment. Dave also wrote a novel although, like most everything else in his life, he never followed through with it.
Most disappointing about Dave is his family situation. Dave is divorced from his wife, Noreen (Hope Davis), and cannot seem to connect with his two children, sixteen year-old Mike (Nicholas Hoult) and eleven year-old daugter Shelly (Gemmenne de la Pena). Mike has recently been busted for smoking pot and Shelly has taken up cigarrettes.
Dave is convinced he can turn the whole thing around with a new job on a national morning television show in New York. He had better act quickly, however, because his father is dying and his wife is preparing to marry another man. His kids' problems are even more disturbing but best left to your discovery in watching the movie.
If Dave Spritz's life sounds depressing, well that's because it really is depressing. The Weather Man, directed by Gore Verbinski, makes no pretense about the level of sadness in its story. Dave is a pathetic character, a wretched failure as a husband and father and a son. He is a narcissus cloaked in his own misery. Still, as played by Cage, Dave Spritz is fascinating to watch.
Cage's chameleonesque ability to melt into his characters is perfectly on display in The Weather Man. Even minor touches like his ease in front of a green screen doing the weather are really convincing. His near meltdowns are a tour de force of wonderfully acted inner turmoil. Dave's plastic surface seems ready to melt from the heat of his inner conflict and that is Nicolas Cage at his absolute best.
Gore Verbinski intrigues me. While I found both Mousehunt and The Mexican to be underwhelming, The Ring was visually accomplished and Pirates of The Carribean showed the potential of a mainstream movie to exceed the limitations of its genre and be both entertaining and artistically crafted.
The Weather Man is yet another step forward in Gore Verbinski's evolution into maybe becoming a very rare kind of director, a mainstream 'auteur'. Watch the way in which his camera observes Dave without engaging him. The audience, like rubberneckers at a crash site, seem to watch Dave's sad life unfold in a slow motion drive by and we cannot turn away. Here's hoping Verbinski does not get too caught up in the Pirates sequels and forgets to make more films as engrossing as The Weather Man.
The film's trailer might give people the impression that The Weather Man is a drama with comedy. There are laughs in the film but they come from a very dark place. They come from failure, humiliation and pain, and the sorrowful ways that Cage's character deals with what happens to him and around him. Dave Spritz is a sad sack character who invites indignity and cannot seem to escape it.
So if the film is as dark as I describe, it begs the question; why did I like it so much? Because it sets out to create a portrait of a particular character and no matter how dark things get the film stays true to that character and tells his story in a most compelling fashion. I liked it because Nicolas Cage is so amazing, to simplify things.
Cage deserves an Oscar nomination for his extraordinary work in The Weather Man. That, however, does not mean that the film is typically entertaining. Some people will have to change the way they look at movies to find pleasure in this film. The movie is challengingly dark and uncompromising in its grim gray look and attitude.
For fans of complicated, interesting movies that ask you to invest yourself heavily in one character The Weather Man is what you are looking for. For the average moviegoer this may not be your cup of tea. The Weather Man is not an easy film to like but, if you are up for it, you will be rewarded with yet another performance by Nicolas Cage that establishes him as arguably the most uniquely talented actor working today.
