Verbinksi, like his stars Cage and Caine, is building an interesting resume. In the middle of filming three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, he adds a character piece to a list of films that includes projects as diverse as Mousehunt and The Ring. Like Cage, he’s not easily dismissed, and like Cage, presents a film as far from the mannered blockbuster as one could get.

There’s a distilled essence of Charlie Kaufman about this story of a terminally melancholic TV weatherman enhanced by Verbinski’s stark direction. No one gets Dave. Not his separated wife, not his teenage kids, his audience and certainly not his Pulitzer Prize winning father. Although his professional life is on the ascendant (he’s has had a call from New York), Dave’s private life is in freefall. His overweight daughter is reclusive, his son is being stalked by a (male) councillor, his wife has a new lover and his father has months to live.

What distinguishes Verbinski’s endearingly bleak feature is its humanity. Despite Dave’s rarefied social caste, there’s immediacy and familiarity about his problems that is engaging. The Weatherman is a good film, but it’s not a great one. It’s too self-aware and too willing to tidy up the pieces at story’s end. For that kind of response, we need to feel more involved in Dave’s life than this sometimes pat, sometimes isolating, treatment allows. I’m interested, but I’m not sure I care enough. None the less, it’s a more honest story than most with a willingness to try that is a welcome respite from the sinking-raft of conventional family-message-movies.

// COLIN FRASER