http://spunkybean.com/commentary/1018-the-11th-annual-waterfront-film-festival-day-one

Weather Girl

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say I was briefly angry because Weather Girl stars Tricia O’Kelley who appeared on Gilmore Girls a few years back as the woman who Luke married on a whim. So I’m still a little bitter. But this comedy turned out to be delightful, even though I’m not sure that I should be using words like ‘delightful’. O’Kelley plays Sylvia Miller, a “sassy weathergirl” on a Seattle morning show who has an on-air meltdown when she learns the show’s anchor has been cheating on her.

After her career suicide, she ends up living in her brother’s apartment and coming to grips with some harsh realities – she has no job, no savings, no boyfriends, and her friends all kind of suck. Yes, it sounds like a romantic comedy set-up. And yeah, that’s sort of what it is. But fortunately, it’s propelled by a really clever sense of humor and a very funny cast.

O’Kelley kind of reminds me of Judy Greer – she’s really expressive and can land a punchline with the best of them. She also can play exasperated without whining, which is really nice. In a perfect world, she should be the person they call for Jennifer Aniston roles. It’s her likeability that really grounds the movie – even if you don’t like romantic comedies and/or can see the plot coming from a mile away, she’s so much fun to watch that you won’t even care.

There’s a pretty great cast backing her up, too. Mark Harmon plays the lecherous anchor, and grosses it up in a way I didn’t expect. Jane Lynch knocks it out of the park as always, Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) gets some great bits, local boy Ryan Devlin has a well-done supporting role as Sylvia’s brother, and Patrick Adams is a genuinely funny love interest. There’s also a performance by Jon Cryer that is absolutely hilarious. Even if I didn’t like the movie, Jon Cryer’s scene still would have made it work seeing.

Weather Girl is solidly funny and aggressively likeable. It’s a straight-out fun movie, and if there’s any justice, we’ll see a lot more from Tricia O’Kelley (and writer-director Blayne Weaver) in the near future.