This movie against chicken soup tells you that life is not so easy to change.

The Weather Forecast is a movie starring Nicolas Cage in 2005 (Cage had not yet become the king of bad movies). In this film, he plays the role of weatherman David. David's life is not smooth sailing. He divorced his wife and a pair of children lived with her. Because of his career, when he walks on the road, strangers always bother him or throw things at him. David's father is a national treasure writer, and his family relationship is well handled. David dreams of being as perfect as his father. He actively strives for better job opportunities. In addition, he insisted on writing novels, trying to repair the relationship with his ex-wife and giving more care to his son and daughter.

Many people may think "The Weather Foreman" is a typical chicken soup movie. The whole movie is about how the protagonist tries to achieve his goal and get a happy ending. However, this movie is unexpected, and chicken soup routines are everywhere. For example, David's daughter is obese and not suitable for learning dance, so David asks her what she wants to learn. Her daughter said she wanted to learn archery, so David spent a lot of money on equipment for her daughter and signed up for a training class, but once she learned it, she lost interest in archery. David patiently asked his daughter what was the motivation for learning archery, and her daughter replied that she wanted to shoot animals. David suddenly had nothing to say. On another occasion, David took his daughter to watch a parent-child skating competition. Their daughter fell, causing them to fall to the last place. David encouraged his daughter not to give up and insisted on skating the whole course. Unexpectedly, my daughter pulled a ligament because of this.

According to the standard of chicken soup theory, David is undoubtedly a good father. He has done his best to care for and educate his daughter, but why is the result unsatisfactory every time? The reason is simple, because real life is full of variables. Chicken soup writers always tell people that as long as they master some methods, they can make life better. But in fact, life is very complicated and there are many uncertain factors. There is no routine that can help us deal with all the problems in life. Chicken soup writers like to tell their parents: "Encourage and guide children to develop their own interests." But can unhealthy interests like David's daughter be encouraged? Chicken soup writers also like to tell people: "Even if you can't be the first, you must stick to it." But persistence is not always a good thing. If you misjudge the situation like David, persistence will only cause more harm.

David's career in movies is just a hint of impermanence in life. Weather forecast is to predict the weather, but until today, human technology still can't make an accurate forecast of the weather in a certain area on a certain day, and can only give a rough reference. It can be said that weather forecasting is a struggle between certainty and uncertainty. This also symbolizes David's dilemma. He is trying to control his life and make it better, but life is uncontrollable and problems are always emerging. Sometimes his good intentions have the opposite effect.

In addition to the uncertainty of life, David also has some problems of his own making. He has many shortcomings, such as swearing, being unfriendly to people and being impulsive and irritable. He is well aware of his shortcomings and actively tries to correct them. In order to get back together with his ex-wife, he asked his ex-wife to attend an emotional training class. The trainer asked them to write down a secret that the other party didn't know, and then gave it to the other party, vowing never to peek. But in the blink of an eye, David immediately peeked at his wife's secret and said it, which led to further escalation of the contradiction with his ex-wife. It can be seen that David's original intention to change is good, but his character lacks loyalty. This is also a problem that many people will encounter in reality. The author of Chicken Soup always said, "As long as you are willing to change, life will turn for the better." The problem is that change is not as simple as they describe. As the saying goes, "a leopard cannot change his spots." It takes a long time for a person to change his personality and lifestyle, and he will never succeed in many cases. And unsuccessful changes may actually make people lost.

There is a story in "Autumn Water in Zhuangzi": There was a man guarding the mausoleum in the State of Yan. He heard that the people in Handan, Zhao, walked beautifully, so he went to learn the walking methods of the people in Handan. As a result, they not only failed to learn the walking style of Handan people, but forgot their original walking style and finally had to climb back to their hometown. There is also a story in Zhuangzi Tian Yun called "The East is effective": It is said that beauty has a congenital heart disease. When she is heartbroken, she will cover her chest and frown, and people around her will be more sympathetic to her. When a woman named "Dong Shi" in her hometown learned about this, she followed her example and covered her chest and frowned every day. However, Dong Shi is ugly, and an ugly girl frowns every day. It is conceivable that the image is not good-looking, but worse.

These two fables show that people should not blindly seek change, but should fully consider whether they can do it and whether their own characteristics are suitable for this change. If they can't do it or their own characteristics are not suitable, making changes will only be counterproductive. Just like David in the film, he tries to imitate the perfect father, wants to write novels and improve his relationship with his family, but he lacks writing ability and is not good at dealing with interpersonal relationships. He insisted on doing it, but it became more and more embarrassing. So, is there really no hope of any change in life? Not exactly. Change sometimes happens inadvertently. For example, David enrolled his daughter in an archery training class, but her daughter gave up. On the contrary, David persevered, so he developed a hobby of archery.

On the other hand, David is not useless. He did a good job and did well in front of the camera. With this talent, he finally got the job of broadcasting weather forecast by a famous TV station in new york, with an annual salary of one million. David wants to save his ex-wife with this job. However, the development of things once again runs counter to his expectations. His ex-wife is unmoved by his success, but plans to marry a new boyfriend. This means that if David wants to move to new york alone, there is little hope of getting back together with his ex-wife, and there is less chance to visit his children. Therefore, he wavered and didn't know whether he should accept new york's job. Finally, David's father's words made David wake up: "In this damn life, we must abandon something." I think this sentence is the essence of the whole movie. Chicken soup for the soul will tell us that family success is more important than career success. But if David chooses to give up his promising job and stay, can he successfully repair his family? Obviously, he can't. In the end, he can only end up with both money and people. It would be a pity if he chose a job, but at least he gained fame and fortune. This choice can't be said to be utilitarian, because life can't be satisfactory. Many times we are eager to get something valuable, but we can't get it no matter how hard we try. At this time, we can only settle for the second best and choose those things that are close at hand and can be obtained.

The beauty of the weatherman is that it doesn't tell the audience a beautiful fairy tale like the general "philosophy of life" movie, telling the audience: "As long as you persist, as long as you change, life will get better and better." It shows a complex and real life. In this life, nothing is certain, and there is no formula to apply. If you persist, you may get nothing, seek change and get lost. In this life, the best choice is to do what you can, and you can only give up decisively what you can't do. As the film said at the end, when we were young, we often fantasized that we were all kinds of excellent people with all kinds of excellent qualities. But with our growth, these qualities and choices have disappeared one by one, leaving only one choice, which is me now. I may not meet our initial expectations, but we can only choose to accept it.