“In Blayne Weaver’s delightful romantic comedy, Tricia O’Kelley turns in a winning performance as a bright and beautiful woman trying to have it all, but usually settling for far less than she deserves.

When Seattle Morning’s “sassy weather girl,” Sylvia Miller, discovers her anchorman boyfriend Dale is cheating on her with anchorwomen Sherry, what better way to get revenge than to confront them both on live TV in front of thousands of viewers? As satisfying as Sylvia’s hilarious morning meltdown must have felt, it leaves her with no job, no boyfriend, no apartment, and nowhere to turn but her younger brother, who agrees to take her in while she figures out what to do with the rest of her life. Burdened with a lot of choices but not too many options, Sylvia trades in an unsatisfying life for an uncertain future and an unlikely new love, learning along the way that sometimes hitting rock bottom is the only way to discover who loves you enough to be painfully honest about your mistakes and your possibilities.” (official festival synopsis)

The problem is not that “sassy weather girl” Sylvia has had a meltdown on air, or that her “walking haircut” of a boyfriend has dumped her for his alcoholic and unhinged co-anchor, or even that she’s now homeless and jobless. The problem is how Sylvia’s life has been allowed to get to this point. Sylvia is untethered and unknown to just about everyone in her life, including herself. Her friends don’t remember her little brother’s name. She doesn’t own anything she can’t fit into a box and a suitase. And it’s totally possible she’s spent the last years of her life in a relationship with a man she doesn’t even love. So maybe losing all of that isn’t the worst thing that could happen.

WEATHER GIRL, though ostensibly rooted in formulaic rom-com (girl meets boy, girl isn’t into boy, boy is into girl, boy and girl get down, someone develops feelings, oops), is really a film about being brutally honest with yourself. Sylvia’s younger brother, Walt, admonishes her early in the film, essentially telling her that we don’t all get to be what we want to be in life. Sylvia doesn’t just want to be a “broadcast journalist,” she sees herself that way, even though she is a 35 year old “weather girl” (and sassy to boot!). Despite the fact that she loses everything within the first five minutes of the film, the real secret is that Sylvia never really had anything to lose, she has to find everything for the first time.

WEATHER GIRL is a darker film than I was expecting, because despite often being very funny, writer and director Blayne Weaver doesn’t back down when the going gets rough. Sylvia and Walt’s relationship isn’t all sweet-sunny big sis/little bro understanding; these are two very different people who struggle to put aside their personal issues in order to truly be there for each other. Sylvia’s romantic entanglement with Walt’s best friend Byron works in much the same way – two different people who have to make a realistic decision about where they’re going, and if it’s going to be together. WEATHER GIRL is about growing up, no matter how old you are, and learning that being happy is a choice, that love isn’t just a feeling, it’s verb, and a verb needs action to work.

At a certain point, Sylvia backpedals on many of the decisions that first brought her to the loveless/homeless/jobless state we first found her in. WEATHER GIRL starts to falter a bit then, as the audience gets regaled with all manner of “they’re sad because they’re not together, but, OH HOW CUTE, they are mourning in the exact same way, awww, they do belong together” shots. Bad times aren’t gotten through by standing on a ferry and staring at the ocean, people, they’re gotten through by wearing the same pajamas eight days in a row and subsisting on full-fat Ben and Jerry’s. Sad people don’t leave the house to sketch things. Sad people write bad poetry, at home, alone. But Weaver recaptures much of WEATHER GIRL’s charm as it wraps up, reminding us how happiness can often be the hardest choice of all.