The Weather Man film review

certificate_15

THE WEATHER MAN

The Weather Man is a darkly comic character study of a middle-aged man struggling to come to terms with himself and the job he does. The film is hard to pin down. Neither broadly funny or rigidly dramatic, it treads an unworn path in an area that makes a target audience elusive.

Held together by a masterfully insulated performance from Nicolas Cage, The Weather Man is directed by the versatile Gore Verbinski, who adopts a far more deft touch than the one he used on Pirates Of The Caribbean. Cage plays David Spritz, a TV weather forecaster whose upbeat, assured on-screen personality is at odds with his tightly wound, insecure self. Despite his apparent success, Spritz has lived his whole life in the considerable shadow cast by his father Robert (Michael Caine), a Pullitzer Prize-winning author.

In the light of his father's achievements, David's career is seen, certainly by Robert, as little short of degrading. Even his possible elevation to a prestigious and lucrative network job fails to impress his father. That David gets paid handsomely is of little consolation. "I get a large reward for doing very little," he concedes. As "a reaction to that," he finds himself occasionally pelted with all manner of foodstuffs from envious passers by, something his father can't comprehend. "But you just read the weather," he puzzles.

The father and son's relationship is central, but the plot also involves David struggling to come to terms with the separation from his wife Noreen (Hope Davis) while remaining connected to their two children Michael (Nicholas Hoult) and Shelly (Gemmenne de la Peña).

It is a reflection of the film's unusual tone that many of its funniest moments are also its saddest. Caine has added a genuine tenderness to his repertoire while Cage's forlorn expression exudes David's utter frustration and misery.

For those curious about what lies behind the fake smiles and gleaming teeth of American TV presenters, The Weather Man offers a touching and amusing portrait of one such figure, albeit a fictitious one.

Kevin Murphy