APRIL 4, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 9

The opaque sheets of ice bob on the rolling waves of Lake Michigan. They are scattered across the water's surface in a pattern that resembles the scales on a dragon's back. The camera angles up and reveals the Chicago skyline drizzled with snow. Then we're in a bathroom with Dave Spritz, played by Nicholas Cage, the weathermen for a local Chicago news station. He's washing his face and giving himself a little self-encouragement to start the day off right. "That was refreshing. I am refreshed. I am refreshing." He paces around the apartment, drinking a morning cup of coffee and talking to himself. The apartment has stale angular walls and sparse dark oak furniture that looks like it was cut out of a Pottery Barn catalogue. As he moves around we see the view from his wall of floor to ceiling windows, which looks out over the Chicago River. A pair of bridges extend out across the water, and the buildings on Wacker Drive cower beneath his window. Snow is falling across the city, drifting past the windows a heavy dusting on the city below.

The Weatherman not only makes use of Chicago's aesthetic beauty, but it also manages to show the stress and despair that come with this city's winters. The film takes you through the lonesome and awkwardly amusing story of a Chicago weatherman whose life takes a series of wrong turns amidst a blistering winter, and not just any winter, a Chicago winter. In this city the summers are too hot and the winters are too cold, but as balmy as our summers get, the winters—I think most would agree—are the worst aspect of Chicago's yo-yo climate. And, as you're trudging through the snow with your scarf wrapped around your face and your coat clenched tightly to your torso, there's usually just one person you are cursing—the weatherman.

Dave Spritz is a good weatherman, but he is a lousy husband, which is why he lives in the city while his ex-wife (who he still calls his wife) and kids live out in a suburb just north of Chicago. In Chicago, the suburbs hang on like leeches to the city. It can be difficult to tell when you're crossing into them. Your first real indicator is the yards, which are either broad green beds of grass in the summer or, as is the case in this film, wide open slabs of snow in front of the houses. His wife has a nice big house with snow out front and a new boyfriend who hangs out around the place helping out with the kids. She needs a lot of help, because the kids aren't doing so well. Their daughter is overweight and gets made fun of at school, and their son is in counseling for drugs—he got caught with some pot. Dave does what he can. He tries going out there to visit, and he takes his daughter to have archery lessons, which she winds up hating. Dave actually starts to like archery though and begins doing quite a bit of target shooting; it's so he can feel in control of his out of control life.

Dave consistently travels between downtown Chicago and the suburbs throughout the film. This yo-yoing between the suburbs and the city is another part of Chicago that I think this film shows nicely. So much of Chicago is split between these two worlds. Many students and professionals travel between the two each day. You see cars lined up in both directions on Lake Shore Drive. Those headed into the city to work and those headed out of the city to work. This film effectively captures the relationship between the two worlds. It is easy to see how calm and placid his family seems in their suburban haven and then see how isolated and sterile his existence appears in his high-rise apartment. If you spend enough time listening to Chicago radio you will begin to pick on a phrase that is repeated quite a bit: "Chicagoland area." Chicago doesn't end at the city's borders. It is a fluid city that leaks into the surrounding suburbs. It can be easy to forget this when your in the heart of the city, but as soon as you travel just a little ways out, as Dave Spritz has to in order to see his family, it becomes clear that while much of the outlying area is not the same as Chicago—it's all Chicago when you get right down to it. And every corner of "Chicagoland" has to deal with Chicago weather.

The heartbeat of The Weatherman is it's portrayal of the Chicago winter. Every shot that is even remotely outdoors features people stumbling along wrapped tightly in their winter gear. This is a common sight in Chicago. You force yourself to get out the door and then suffer your way down the street. As Dave's life keeps slipping further and further into disarray and confusion, you can see him out on the streets wearing that agony along with the cold. That's what winter does to you in Chicago. It makes all the other troubles in your life all the more unbearable.

Dave gets it even worse though, because as far as the citizens of the city are concerned, he is responsible for the weather. But, the tragedy is that Dave doesn't know anything about the weather. He majored in communications, not meteorology. He has been trained to look good, sound confident, and be refreshing. As far as his weather expertise is concerned, he takes his queues from a snide looking little man who translates the radar information for Dave. At one point in the film, Dave asks the station's meteorologist to explain to him why the forecast is what it is. The meteorologist looks at him and explains to Dave that it's all just wind, a fact Dave seems to swallow with some difficulty. Clearly he had hoped he was giving sounder advice than he actually was.

So, maybe the animosity Dave's position as a television weatherman generates from the public is somewhat justified. On several occasions in the film he gets food or drinks thrown at him as he walks down the freezing cold streets. A slushy drink once, a taco another time, and a McDonald's hot apple pie later. That one really gets him. He stands there trying to figure out why it got thrown at him. Who gets pies thrown at them? Then he remembers that clowns get pies thrown at them. All these flying delicacies are an interruption of the dropping temperature, his failed family, and his father's recently diagnosed illness—a father who he feel does not respect him.

Dave's father, played by Michael Caine, is a famous American author who has recently been diagnosed with Lymphoma. Caine does a fantastic job at keeping this character subdued yet still engaging. Throughout the film Dave manages to embarrass himself in front of his father. At one point Dave feebly slaps his wife's boyfriend across the face with his gloves, and the father responds, "If you don't want your father to think you're a silly fuck, then don't slap your wife's boyfriend in the face with your gloves." But his father is there throughout the film, despite his failing health, offering him advice and council in spite of the fact that his son is indeed "a silly fuck."

The Weatherman, in terms of the city of Chicago, manages to capture the frigid isolation of our winters. As Dave's life gets even further and further away from what he wanted, the winter manages to wear down on him as well. You need to experience it to know, but anyone who has had to suffer through a Chicago winter can attest to the fact that those cold blistering winds feed hopelessness. They make despair seem logical. The winter lowers your expectations and allows you to acquiesce to calm submissive melancholy.

One of the last things that Dave's father says to him in the film is, "In this life son, in this shit life, you must chuck some things." He’s referring to Dave's life in Chicago. He's referring to the family that he can't quite put back together. He's telling his son that it is time to move on and excel at that which he can excel at, so Dave gets out. He gets a job at a nationwide New York morning show doing the weather and making a huge salary. The last time we see Dave he's waving from a float in a parade with his trench coat hanging loosely from his shoulders. The voice over reminds us that his life still isn't perfect. His kids are back in Chicago with another man living in the house. But as float moves down the road and he waves to the crowd one thing is evident to this Chicagoan—he looks warm.

I don't know how to describe how this film makes me feel. It doesn't make me feel good; it doesn't really make me feel bad. It leaves me feeling run down and tired. It sucks out a lot of my resistance, and I am usually a little extra-sensitive after I watch it. It leaves me with a sensation of isolation and calm resignation that I think is unwholesome. In other words, it feels like a Chicago winter.