The Weather Man

Director: Gore Verbinski

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis

Isn't it always the way? It never rains, but it pours. This certainly seems to be the case for David Spritz (Nicolas Cage), chief weather forecaster for Chicago's most popular morning news programme. Even with a high profile job, his life is pretty wet, full of various disheartening problems that hit him all at once. Whilst in the studio he wows those who tune in with his immense charisma and presence, however life outside is a lot more turbulent. It is fair to say that Spritz isn't going through a very sunny patch- having fast food flung at him on the streets by malicious viewers, struggling to get on with a divorced wife (Hope Davis), his obese daughter Shelley and his marijuana-addicted son Mike. He makes this worse by being obsessed with comparing himself to his extremely profitable author father (Michael Caine), who it is clear he can never successfully measure up to. When a new job opportunity appears, Spritz pursues it without a second thought, and it is up to him to see weather or not this will instantly solve all his difficulties.

Best known for completely different styled hits such as Pirates of the Caribbean and The Mexican, Verbinski has clearly got stuck into making this. The mature scenarios within the film are handled very well in a painfully pragmatic way making The Weather Man powerfully moving in the very least. Yet, what definitely makes this film is, undoubtedly, the relationship between Caine and Cage. Some have forecasted that to put together two Oscar winning silver-screen masters could well fail to produce the best results; however, this is certainly not the case. Cage's smooth performance is well matched by Caine, and the frank exchanges between them are very amusing, especially when discussing the issue of 'camel toe' in reference to Shelley's bullying.

Overall, The Weather Man is an absolute gem, for it succeeds in being extremely poignant as well as very funny. A heart-warming story about a man getting grips with his own mediocrity - this is definitely not just one for a rainy day.

Laura Sparshot