Saw this movie this weekend called "The Weatherman". It had Nicholas Cage playing a weatherman from Chicago going through a mid-life crisis. The description seemed very depressing, and I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it, but I ended up very impressed.

Cage's "David Spritz" is the son of Pulitzer Prize winning author "Robert Spritzen", played by Michael Caine. Caine's character is dying, and Cage's character has always felt that, despite his financial success, he could never lived up to his father's image. He's tried writing a novel, but frankly, it stinks.

The movie itself never takes the easy way out. Where it could get a cheap emotional add-in by having Spritz get back together with his wife, or have a breakdown during his audition for a better job (especially since Spritz has just learned that his father is going to die and that his ex-wife, who he still loves, is getting re-married), instead the movie takes real-life turns. Spritz may still love his wife, but she doesn't love him anymore, and his own anger and frustation prevent him from getting through to her. Despite the sadness he feels, Spritz is a professional.He can do his job in his sleep, and he nails the tryout.


Caine has a great quote:
"Do you know that the harder thing to do, and the right thing to do, are usually the same thing? 'Easy' doesn't enter into grown-up life... to get anything of value, you have to sacrifice."

And giving everything away, that's where the movie ends. Cage's life remains disturbing. He's deleted his half-finished novel. He doesn't get his wife back. He moves away from his children. His father is dead, and Cage will never match what he was. But he comes to a certain peace. He understands that the time in his life for trying to be something is over. He is something. It's not the storybook ending, but for 99.9 percent of us this is how it goes. We want a lot of things for ourselves, we don't get all of them, and we learn to accept the things that we have.

I'm a lot less secure in my job skills than Cage's David Spritz. I don't have a father who's image I have to live up to. I'm not pining over a failed marriage. But I'm at the age where the fundamental message of this film really resonates.