Aaron Katz’s Cold Weather is a nice film that could have been even better. It centres on Doug, a young man who has abandoned his degree in forensics to come home to Portland, Oregon. There, he shares an apartment with his sister Gail, and takes a job at the local ice factory. His decision mystifies his family, as well as his new friend at work, Carlos. The first half of the film is devoted to establishing the atmosphere of Doug’s life: going for a walk by the ocean with Gail, sharing his love of Sherlock Holmes mysteries with Carlos, and meeting up for coffee with his ex-girlfriend Rachel. However, there is a generic shift midway: in its remaining half the film is transformed into a mystery. When Rachel goes missing, Doug, Carlos and Gail must solve the case using Sherlock Holmes style logic and daring stakeout tactics.

It is rare to find a film that creates a bad first impression but improves drastically: this film is one of them. During the first fifteen minutes of Cold Weather, I was very close to walking out. The film was trying my patience with irritating characters, banal dialogue and poor editing. Doug, the protagonist, was the most irksome character of all: he would stare stupidly into space and finally say something boring. Although his sister Gail was pretty, her dialogue with other characters made her equally annoying: long pauses would conclude with a dull observation. The film was also boring visually as many shots lasted too long. The opening shot was taken from the window of Doug and Gail’s apartment building, looking down into the rain-drenched courtyard. It wasn’t a bad image, but hardly interesting enough to justify the duration of the shot. It took too long for Doug to come through the front gate of the building and bring the shot to an end.

The director’s judgement on shot duration did not change over the course of the film. There were still many shots that just felt too long. Although the shot composition is always good, too many of these long takes are of boring locations. To be fair, though, there were a few shots of great aesthetic beauty: the ocean shore, for example, and
the bridge in front of the waterfall (the one shot in the film which could have lasted a little longer). Up to the very end of the film, shots of characters saying nothing to each other also seemed to last too long: the camera’s extreme proximity to the characters faces during these silences suggested that there was something very important that wasn’t being said. It is possible that these weighty silences were merely meant to reflect a comfortable yet profound emotional bond between the characters, but it also gave the impression of something left tantalisingly unspoken.

The script improved somewhat during the film’s first half: the dialogue began to resemble mildly interesting or funny conversations that take place in real life. It is to the credit of the actors’ performance, too, that the audience could truly begin to believe in the characters and develop a strong attachment to them: the honest Doug and his taste for Sherlock Holmes; the practical Gail who is always willing to pitch in; the friendly, foul-mouthed Carlos and his DJ nights; the doe-eyed Rachel, a secret Star Trek fan. The audience’s patience is rewarded during the second half of the film: the mystery is introduced suddenly, and one intriguing clue quickly follows another. Up to this point, the characters seemed content with a routine existence and a few small pleasures. The mystery shakes Doug, Gail and Carlos out of their stupor: while they demonstrate that they have active minds behind their placid facades, their approach to solving the mystery remains realistic and in keeping with their character. It is perhaps for this reason that the audience will feel more intrigued and anxious about Cold Weather’s outcome than they would feel about a Hollywood thriller. Every viewer instinctively knows that Hollywood movies will end with the protagonist saving the day. Situations are more realistic in Cold Weather, however, and although the playful tone leads the audience to expect a happy ending, the film could arrive at it in any number of ways. When Gail and Doug had to make their getaway, I couldn’t remember when a film had made me feel so anxious. This was an impressive feat on the part of the director, given that the film had initially been so boring. Cold Weather takes time to warm up, but for the bond you ultimately feel with these characters, it is worth the wait.