Cold Weather

From the mumblecore director Aaron Katz, I expected a film that was purely like the first thirty minutes or so of this film. In other words, I expected a mumblecore film. But Katz goes in a different direction in COLD WEATHER, using the strength of mumblecore in order to enhance a drama. In the first thirty minutes of this film, we watch Doug, a forensic science major, taking a job at an ice factory. "They have ice factories?" his sister Gail asks. "Yeah, where did you think those ice packets came from?" Doug says. Exchanges like this populate most of the film, as Doug lends fellow worker and DJer, Carlos, some Sherlock Holmes books, and meets up with an ex-girlfriend Rachel. Doug hangs out a lot for the opening of the film, and nothing really happens except that Doug is established as a down-on-his-luck loser who hasn't grown up yet. But then, asleep at his sister's, Carlos barges in, fresh off of a new Sherlock Holmes story, but frantically telling Doug that Rachel's gone missing. Not really missing, but didn't show up to a gig of his when she'd said she would. He went to her hotel room, found nothing, but was disconcerted. "You know about this kind of thing," he tells Doug. "What?" "Mysteries." Then the film becomes tense. Doug searches and searches, using his forensic background less than Holmes-like hunches and techniques. Carlos follows him around, and a weak idea about what's going on begins to form. But whether Rachel is found or not, or whether the motives behind her disappearance or found or not, nothing in Doug's life will change. That becomes very clear, and Katz's early illustrations of Doug's mundane and declining life, help to accentuate this as his techniques become even a little silly. But COLD WEATHER is immensely appealing, and Doug becomes likable in spite of himself.

★★★★ out of Five