Weather Girl

An affable yet conventional romantic comedy, Weather Girl casts Tricia O’Kelley as Sylvia Miller – a Seattle-based meteorologist who quits her job after learning that her anchorman boyfriend (Mark Harmon’s Dale) has been sleeping with his cohost (Kaitlin Olson’s Sherry). Sylvia is, as a result, forced to move in with her slacker brother (Ryan Devlin’s Walt), with the film subsequently following Sylvia’s ongoing efforts at both finding a new job and sustaining a relationship with Walt’s easygoing best friend (Patrick J. Adams’ Byron). Filmmaker Blayne Weaver does a fantastic job of immediately luring the viewer into the proceedings, as the writer/director kicks things off with a fantastically entertaining sequence in which Sylvia launches into a vicious on-air tirade against Harmon’s smug character. (Sylvia eventually quits her job, but not before she refers to Dale as a “walking haircut.”) It’s a tremendously engrossing scene that ultimately stands as the film’s high point, with Weaver’s sitcom-like sensibilities ensuring that Weather Girl suffers from a pervasively uneven vibe that only grows more and more problematic as time progresses. Before it completely peters out, however, the film generally comes off as a perfectly watchable endeavor that benefits substantially from O’Kelley’s engaging turn as the likeable protagonist – with the palpable chemistry between the actress and her onscreen love interest compensating for the overly episodic nature of the movie’s midsection. The passable atmosphere persists right up until Weather Girl enters its tiresome, needlessly melodramatic third act, with the ineffectiveness of this stretch cementing the film’s place as a decidedly underwhelming romcom (although, having said that, it’s impossible to deny the strength of the heartwarmingly romantic finale).

** out of ****