The Weather Man

Released 2005
Stars Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis, Gemmenne de la Pena, Nicholas Hoult, Michael Rispoli, Gil Bellows
Directed by Gore Verbinski

We think of tragic heroes outlined against the horizon, tall and doomed, the victims of their vision and fate, who fall from a great height. "The Weather Man" is about a tragic hero whose fall is from a low height. David Spritz (Nicolas Cage) is a Chicago weatherman whose marriage has failed, whose children are troubled, whose father is disappointed, and whose self-esteem lies in ruins. "All of the people I could be," he tells us, "they got fewer and fewer until finally they got reduced to only one -- and that's who I am. The weather man."

There is nothing ignoble about being a weatherman, especially in Chicago, where we need them. David's fatal flaw (all tragic heroes have one) is that he does not value his own work. Perhaps his broadcast viewers sense that, which is why they throw fast food at him from passing cars. They sense that he has embraced victimhood, and are tempted. To feel inadequate is Dave Spritz's life sentence. His father Robert (Michael Caine) is a famous novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize, and who has always been disappointed in his son -- disappointed, we sense, at every stage of Dave's life, and by everything that he has done.

Yes, "The Weather Man" is a downer, although the sun breaks through from time to time, and there are moments of comedy that are earned, not simply inserted. Do you never want to see a downer? Some time ago, tiring of people telling me "Oh, I heard that movie was depressing," I started telling them: "Every bad movie is depressing. No good movie is depressing." Sometimes they get it. Sometimes they look at me as if I'm mad. I haven't had any fast food thrown at me yet.

Summary by Roger Ebert

I don't think "The Weather Man" is necessarily a downer, but the main character is certainly depressing. He's probably clinically depressed, and it can be difficult to spend an entire movie with someone like that. I enjoyed it, though, and the main reason was because of the relationship between Dave (Nicholas Cage) and his father, Robert (Michael Caine). Robert is a writer who has won at least one Pulitzer and is widely respected, while Dave is a mimbo (male bimbo) version of a weather girl. One of the interesting dichotomies is how much more money Dave earns than his father. Robert is quick to praise him for the "American" version of success, which is what I really liked about this movie. Robert always praises Dave, but he does so in a manner that lets Dave know how disappointed he is in everything he does. This happens every time they talk. If you watch the body language, you see Dave smile weakly at the praise while he waits for the insult. There's only one time that Robert doesn't do this, and it's when Dave tells him that he took care of the counselor. It was my favorite moment of the movie. Dave thinks he's done the right thing and tells his father, who praises him for it, of course, but then the biting comment doesn't come. Instead Robert praises him again, and Dave's head snaps around with that unexpected comment. Then he falls apart after having finally received some genuine approval.

To me this relationship is the key to the movie. Dave is successful in his professional life, but he doesn't respect himself for it because his father doesn't respect him. His personal life is a complete failure, but that's because he was made to feel a failure every step of the way. You can imagine what his childhood would have been like. Personally, I don't like the current thinking that you have to unconditionally praise your children for everything they do. We celebrate the average today like we used to celebrate the exceptional. Today, everyone's exceptional, and children can do no wrong. Children need to know when they've done well, but they also need to know when they can do better. The counterpoint to this is you have to recognize their true limitations and not be disappointed if they can't live up to your expectations. Being consistently disappointed in your children can lead them to be a miserable mess like Dave. --Bill Alward, March 6, 2006