Monday, August 20, 2007

The Weather Man

Have you ever heard a piece of music that tugs a bit at your tear ducts? Rent the DVD to "The Weather Man" starring Nicolas Cage, and you'll hear one such piece. It's called Pling Plong, composed by Hans Zimmer.

Pling Plong is a simple, short, softly percussive work written for xylophone, hand chimes, toy piano, and synthesizer. On its own and out of context, the song sounds pretty, but it is pretty much just a pleasant lullaby. The emotional impact it has on me is due far more to the powerful film that the music accompanies.

"The Weather Man" is one of the saddest movies I have seen in a very long time -- really, not since Cage's other wrenching portrayal of a tragically flawed man, as an alcoholic in the devastating "Leaving Las Vegas" (not to be mistaken for the incomparably lighter comedy "Honeymoon in Las Vegas"). This time, Cage's character is not trying to drink himself into oblivion; rather, David Spritz is trying very hard to succeed in life and to earn the approval of his family. But for some reason, the harder he tries, the harder he falls.

Spritz is a weatherman in Chicago, and though television audiences see only the smiling, handsome, annoyingly chipper Spritz, we see the man both on and off the green-screen. In the studio, he is relatively confident and sure of himself. But then we see him wandering the jammed streets of the Windy City, picking up an overweight, unhappy daughter, arguing with his ex-wife Noreen over how to handle their son's return from rehab, taking a stern, critical father to the hospital to discover that he is dying of lymphoma, and getting continually hit with fast food from drivers passing by. In one of David's frustrated streams of consciousness, we hear him trying to understand..."why?":

...the whole think is, who gets hit with a fucking pie, anway?
Did anyone ever throw a pie at Thomas Jefferson?
Or Buzz Aldrin? I doubt it.
But this is like the ninth time I got...

Then, a realization:

Clowns get hit with pies.

In some ways, David is like a clown. Whatever he does goes comically wrong. During trust-building exercises at a relationship counseling session, David has what is probably his last chance at restoring his marriage. When told to "name something you did that affected your partner and that you're not proud of," he blurts out:

I had this thing with porno on the computer, sort of.
I got a little preoccupied...

The therapist pauses, then politely reveals:

Actually, I want you to write it down, not say it.

Oops. The audience laughs. For men, it is a laugh of relief -- "I'm glad I wasn't the joker who said that."

Then there is the moment when David tries to restore some of the lost playfulness he had with Noreen by throwing a snowball at her. But (you guessed it) she turns into the toss and is hit in the eye by the ice. Instant guffaw.

More often, however, David's blunders have far worse consequences. For the same trust-building exercise mentioned before, David and Noreen trade notes, which neither of them are supposed to read -- EVER. Giving into temptation (who wouldn't?), David reads Noreen's note the first chance he gets. It reveals that she thinks his attempt to write a science fiction novel was "stupid and sucked...and a waste of time." A hurtful thing to say, especially to someone whose own father was a Pulitzer-prize winning writer, a man whose shoes David could never hope to fill.

The tragic blunder comes afterwards, during dinner with Noreen. Too preoccupied with the note he was never supposed to read, he is completely oblivious to his ex-wife's hopeful look in her eyes. She is, perhaps, ready to give their marriage a second chance. But David's leg is bouncing up and down, he looks distracted and resentful, and when David blurts out his resentment to Noreen, we are not surprised.

Noreen is, however:

You're an asshole. God
You are a champion asshole.
You're a real blue-ribbon fuck!

David's explanation for his behavior is honest, and understandable:

I just want to know everything, so I can make it work. That's why I...
I want to try again.

But it is lost. Noreen can't listen:

I'm not going back. You fucked it up.

The amazing thing about Nicolas Cage's performance is that we desperately want him to do something right for a change. It is so clear that he loves his family, but as he smiles at his overweight, unhappy daughter, we notice an endearing mix of care and cluelessness. He is well-intentioned, he is loving, it's just that he is, well... a clown.

But we don't want him to fuck up. We don't want to laugh at him. We want the same thing for him that he wants for himself, and that his father wants for him, and that his children so clearly want from him: we want for David to be able to finally knuckle down and get it together.

There are two powerful motifs that the filmmakers use to key the audience into David Spritz 's existential struggle. First, there is an almost subliminal omnipresence of clocks, accompanied by a score that plings and plongs rhythmically and repetitively. Framed in the backgrounds of shot after establishing shot, there are clocks with second-hands ticking interminably into the future. Time is running out for David's father, who is dying of lymphoma; and time is running out for David to get his act together and make his father proud of him before he dies. Played by Michael Caine, Robert Spritzel (David dropped the 'e-l' from his own last name to make his screen name sound 'refreshing') is an involved, concerned father who is dismayed by David's haplessness. David is Robert's only failure in life, and though Caine restrains his performance, he succeeds in conveying the defeated resignation that Robert must feel as he watches his son's family life unravel.

If the unraveling of time were the only thread in this story--if ticking clocks were the only motif--then it would be an oppressive downer. Yet, a second image in film begins to counter the unrelenting march of time, and to offer hope for continual progress and improvement in David's life. The image is also a circular one, but of a decidedly different nature: that of a target with a bull's eye.

One of David's early attempts to bond with his daughter Shelly is to take her to an archery range and enroll her in lessons there. After she quickly loses interest, however, it is David who begins to take up the hobby. He uses the bow, quiver and arrows he had bought for Shelly and enrolls in classes himself. Archery proves to be the only thing in his life where the rules are clear, results are predictable, and accuracy is possible. And for too long in the film, it is the only area in which we witness David improving. But he does improve, steadily and perceptibly; his aim becomes more and more sure, his release swifter and more confident, and his marksmanship approaching perfection.

And then, subtly at first, almost imperceptibly, David begins to bring his life into a sort of alignment as well. He defends his son from a pedophilic drug counselor; he makes amends with his father before his funeral; and he is offered a job with the national morning news show, "Hello America!" There are moments when he comes precariously close to his breaking point, and when we fear that he will ruin these precious chances as well. Ultimately, though, he succeeds in tilting the balance back towards stability, towards an acceptance of his life. It is a bittersweet acceptance, one that involves a resignation to who he is, what he is capable of and what he is not. In an inner monologue that touched too close to home for me, David reflects:

I remember once...
...imagining what my life would be like, what I'd be like.
I pictured having all these qualities.
Strong, positive qualities...
...that people could pick up from across a room.
But as time passed...
...few ever became any qualities I actually had.
And all the possibilities I faced, and the sorts of people I could be...
...all of them got reduced every year to fewer and fewer...
...until finally they got reduced to one...
...to who I am.
And that's who I am...
...the weatherman.

This is why the song Pling Plong from "The Weather Man" soundtrack nearly brings tears to my eyes when I listen. It is a song of time passing, of the reduction of possibility from many to one, and of a quiet fading of hopes and dreams.