Nic Cage is Dave Spritz, a weatherman in Chicago, hoping that if he can land the job as weatherman on Bryant Gumbel's Hello America show, it will finally fix everything in his life. His accomplished author father (Michael Caine) will be proud of him, his wife will take him back, his kids will like him, all that jazz.
It's bizarre to me that people would ask for the autograph of the local weather guy, or decide to throw McDonald's apple pie at him as they drive past, but allowing that this movie takes place in such a world, it's the difference between what people see on TV and reality. People think because Dave seems witty and clever on-air, he'd be a fun guy to talk with in line at the DMV. Or that because he tells them about the weather, he actually knows what he's saying, and isn't just some General Communications major getting told the best guesses of the actual meteorologist.
At the end of the day, Dave's a wildly insecure guy who mostly doesn't think beyond his own immediate wants. He wants to get back together with his wife, but he doesn't think about what the trust she demands really requires. It's just something he says - "I trust you. I want you to trust me." - to get everybody to move on. His son is in a program of some sort after being busted smoking pot, and rather than really talk to him about the whys, Dave promised him an expensive camera if he makes it through the program. His daughter shows an interest in archery, and after a bad first lesson, Dave does go to the trouble of taking lessons himself, so he can teach her, but he's never really bothered to ask her why she wanted to shoot arrows. It was just a way to spend time with his daughter to prove something to somebody - "See, I'm a good dad!"
The movie takes place during winter, so most of the scenes are shot in a cold, grey lighting. A lot of shots of Dave by himself, literally or in deep in his own head. There are a couple of different scenes of him standing at the water cooler in the newsroom, one when it's full, one when it's empty. Dave's presence makes about the same amount of difference in both.
It's sort of an exhausting movie. Dave keeps doing things to embarrass himself, and we can see them coming each time, but there's nothing the audience can do but see there and, in my case, feel embarrassed on behalf of this moron. It's like watching someone in a horror movie do something incredibly obviously stupid, but instead of being dismembered by inbred, cannibalistic hillbillies, we get to watch Dave explain to his dad that, yes, sometimes people throw Frostys at him. What's a Frosty? It's a shake from Wendy's.
Honestly, I don't know what they were going for with Michael Caine's character. He seems entirely oblivious to basically everything. You don't know what a milkshake is, or recognize a Big Gulp cup (which I'm pretty sure says "Big Gulp" on the side)? He basically seems to be there to express bewilderment at whatever thing Dave said or did that he just walked in on. But I guess if you want Nic Cage to have a father figure that would make him feeling inadequate without saying anything, Michael Caine's a decent choice.
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