The Weather Man (2005)

This movie was overlooked in the theaters-- I believe I blinked the day it was in the theaters and it was gone before I had the chance to see it.

The film was full of the somber melancholy humor which made movies like American Beauty and About Schmidt worth watching.

David Spritz (Nicolas Cage) is not a likeable character, but because he's not likeable he's delightfully real. He's not cardboard caricature of a human, he is human and as such he resonates with an audience that may not like him, but still finds it within their hearts to sympathize with him.

Spritz a local weatherman for Chicago has a career on the rise. He's been shortlisted to become the Weather Man for a national morning show, Hello America with Bryant Gumbel. But even as his professional life is going well, his personal life is disintegrating around him. He and his wife are estranged and have seperated. His two children-- son Michael (Nicholas Hoult last seen playing Marcus in About a Boy, Hoult nails the American accent to great effect) and daughter Shelly (Gemmenne de la Peña previously seen in Erin Brockovich) won't talk to him, he can't stand the man, Russ (Michael Rispoli) whom his ex-wife, Noreen, has started dating, and his own father (played with brilliance as always, by Michael Caine) doesn't take him seriously.

The humor comes in the comedy of errors that Spritz life has turned into-- getting repeatedly pelted with various forms of fast food (Burritos, Big Gulps, Chicken McNuggets, Frosties, etc. etc.), and random strangers asking him what day the "nipper" was going to be (referring to the abhorrent catch phrase "The Spritz Nipper" which his station came up with).

Some of the more poignant moments in the film include Spritz realization that while his daughter has been nicknamed, "Camel Toe" she's oblivious to the true definition and takes it as a compliment rather than as a slur (camel toes are tough, they do all that walking in the desert), and when Spritz decides to settle a score with the pedophiliac counselor who made advances on his 15 year old son.

In the end, sometimes life is shit and you need to make the best of the lemons it gives you, and in the end Spritz comes to learn and understand that message. His life may not have turned out as he planned, but he was still able to make the best of how it turned out.