A good friend of mine recently bemoaned the fact that while there are tons of “chick flicks” on TV prior to and during Christmas, once Christmas was over, there was not one good romantic comedy to be found anywhere to get her through the New Year’s holiday unless she wanted to watch “When Harry Met Sally” one more time. Since New Year’s is not my favorite holiday either, I took her complaint to heart and went in search of a new romantic comedy that might be worth a watch. “The Weather Girl” an indie comedy that picked up a few film festival awards last year might not have been something I rushed to a theater to see, but now that it was just released on DVD, I think this quirky, not completely formulaic comedy, is certainly a fun, enjoyable chick flick for the new year.

Sylvia, a perky Seattle weather girl, finds her world crumbling around her when the co-worker she is in love with, Dale, cheats on her. The cheating is not actually the worst part of it. The worst part of the situation is the on-air meltdown she has when she tries to humliate her true love on air. The tirade – really one of the better female rants in romantic comedy lore – gets her fired and makes her umemployable in weather girl land.
With no other skills, her life goes into a major slide, and she is forced to move in with her younger brother.Being a single thirtysomething career woman living with her slacker younger brother and his juvenile acting roommate piles even more humiliation on Sylvia than she can stand at first. Then, of course, a little unexpected romance enters Sylvia’s life against her better judgement. It is not only her new romance that Sylvia begins to question, but also her past and future goals and priorities .
The first half of this movie is certainly stronger than the second half, and like I said, I would not have rushed to the theater to see this film But the performances in “Weather Girl” outshine the occassional weak holes in the script , and for a romantic comedy it has some moments that are not as predictable as you might think. So if you need a new light-hearted romance to help you usher in the new year, this is certainly a much better choice than watching Meg and Billy, or Meg and Tom, or Meg and Tom again, on cable one more time.