A storm on the rise

Dave Spritz is a Chicagoland news weather guy. He's got a nice apartment, a nice car and an unbelievably easy job. For better or for worse, he's got local fame. And a national morning news program (and its substantial pay increase) is looking for a new Willard Scott, and they think it might be him. They've seen his work, and they're impressed. \nBut outside the studio, he's a total wreck. He's estranged from his wife and his kids would just as soon not talk to him. So what gives?\nDavid's biggest problem is he's fallen into a job that takes no effort at all. He's no meteorologist; he's a smiling face who works well in front of a green screen, puts in less than a half day's work and pulls in six figures. There is no real substance to what he does. \nBut this lack of effort has made him lazy. You can imagine he expects life to be as calming and cheerful as the chirpy morning television his professional persona inhabits -- and the film catches him just as he comes to the inevitable conclusion that it's not. \n"The Weather Man" is a pretty solid film all around. It's directed by Gore Verbinski, the guy behind the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series and "The Ring." His latest would not seem fitting at all in this series, but if anything, that's a credit to his ability. \nVerbinski gets a lot of help, too, from his star. What makes Nicolas Cage's performance so lovely is that it would be easy to call Spritz pathetic. But if the film teaches us anything, it's that nothing comes easy, and that includes generalizations. So, in the spirit of that, he isn't so much pathetic as he is exasperated. He doesn't understand how to make his kids (Gemmenne de la Pena and Nicholas Hoult) talk to him, he can't figure out a way to please his father (Michael Caine) and he can't make ground with his ex-wife (Hope Davis). But it's not that he can't, it's that he simply doesn't know how. \nThere's a scene midway through the film where David, after dropping his daughter off, sits in his car in front of the house where he used to live. She's overweight, shy and picked on by other kids at school, but he looks at the mansion his carefree morning show has allowed him to purchase, and all he can think to himself is "she's supposed to be happy." As to why she isn't, he's baffled. He'd fix it if he could, and that's what he spends most of his time doing -- trying to figure out how to fix his problems. \n"The Weather Man" doesn't answer anything. If you go into this movie looking for resolution for Dave's problems, you're in the wrong theater. It merely points them out and comments on them. He may get a few of them figured out, but it's not so much answering his questions that is his conflict as it is learning to deal with them. Whether he does or not is what makes this film worth watching.