Dave Spritz lives in the shade of a famous, beloved father. A Chicago weatherman, Dave inspires food-hurling fury in too many Windy City denizens. His father, Robert Spritzel, is a prize-winning author in the mode of John Updike.
Being blown sideways by the gale-force importance of his father isn’t Dave’s real problem. His deeper woes are that he hasn’t lived up to his own expectations.
He had a wife. She lives in the house they once shared. He has two children he makes clumsy, often clueless efforts to connect with.
You may have seen Dave, played by Nicolas Cage, on the poster for “The Weather Man.” He’s in a suit, a smear of milkshake drips down his shoulder.
At the time director Gore Verbinski read “The Weather Man” script, he had been spending a lot of time with a likable lush by the name of Capt. Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp). So successful was their collaboration that Verbinski was in negotiations to ride “Pirates of the Carribbean” two more times.
“I really didn’t want to jump back in without exercising some different muscles, and I was looking for a drama. Then I read the script. We snuck this in between the two ‘Pirates’ movies – finished the second, went into production on this and went into preproduction on ‘Pirates’ again.”
Dave Spritz should be likable. That he isn’t quite so is one of the bolder choices Verbinski and his star made. And a better prognosticator than his lead character, Verbinski knew strange winds might swirl around his very observant, moody studio film.
“There are people who feel ownership in the movie, like they’ve discovered something really important to them,” he said on the phone from Los Angeles. “Then there are people who feel that it was depressing and too melancholy, and didn’t wrap up with enough of a happy conclusion.”
It was the same tension, he says, with preview screenings. “They started arguing with each other, the focus group.”
When critics got their chance last week, they drew the similar lines.
“I didn’t want to make another genre picture,” said Verbinski in a voice that nearly coaxes. “I like escapism (‘Pirates’). I like magical realism. I like the horror movie (‘The Ring’). But this is realism. This is the mirror. Some people don’t like to look in the mirror.”
The familial candor of Steven Conrad’s script resonated, not just because Verbinski is a father of two (he lives with his wife and their boys in Los Angeles) but because he is a son.
Born in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Verbinski played guitar in two punk bands (the Daredevils and Little Kings). He went to film school. He created the Budweiser frogs and picked up a goodly number of advertising awards before making his first feature, “Mousehunt.”
Verbinski’s father was a nuclear physicist. He died last year.
“I think, when your dad’s a physicist and you’re playing music and going to film school that’s a pretty big gap between what you think you’re doing and what your dad’s done in his life.”
So although the director’s films have made more than $1 billion worldwide, he has a sense of scale, of all-too-human scale.
“The thing I hope people relate to is that we all want to be better in our lives – better parents, better lovers, better at our jobs. But some point in our life we have to ask the question of who are we versus who could we be.”
That, said Verbinski, is the core for him – Dave’s wrestling match with mediocrity.
“There’s this sort of acceptance that Dave’s father is filet mignon and Dave is an Egg McMuffin.” That sounds harsher than Verbinski means. But it’s the sort of reckoning that makes “The Weather Man” so compelling.
“I think everyone at some point gets to that place in life where all the things that you could have been are reduced. What’s left is who you are.”
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-820-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
