Cast: Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Scott Glenn, Rhys Ifans, Pete Postlethwaite, Cate Blanchett, Jason Behr, Alyssa Gainer, Kaitlyn Gainer, Lauren Gainer
Director: Lasse Hallström
Producers: Linda Goldstein Knowlton, Leslie Holleran, Irwin Winkler
Screenplay: Robert Nelson Jacobs, based on the novel by E. Annie Proulx
Cinematography: Oliver Stapleton
Music: Christopher Young
U.S. Distributor: Miramax Films
It could be argued that the most difficult screenplays to write are adaptations of novels. The task becomes doubly challenging when the source material is long and/or complex - the more pages the book has, the more condensation and elimination the screenwriter is forced to engage in. By all accounts, E. Annie Proulx's novel, The Shipping News, is a brilliant piece of fiction (not having read it myself, I am making this statement based on second-hand knowledge). Nevertheless, however good the book may be, the movie conversion cannot be considered better than mediocre. There are problems with pacing and tone, but the biggest flaw is the script. Robert Nelson Jacobs' adaptation is far from seamless - even a casual viewer will recognize that there's more going on with these characters than what we see on screen. It's as if significant chunks of their lives are being hidden from us, resulting in a frustrating desire to see more than what the movie gives us.
Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) is a timid, unremarkable individual working in a newspaper printing department. His life is at a low ebb - his wife, Petal (Cate Blanchett), is openly cheating on him (to the point where she brings her one-night stands back to their house) and his father has just died. When Quoyle returns from the funeral, he discovers that Petal has taken their six-year old daughter, Bunny (played by sisters Alyssa, Kaitlyn, and Lauren Gainer), and run off. Petal is killed in a car accident after selling Bunny to an illegal adoption agency. After recovering his daughter, Quoyle decides to move to Newfoundland with his aunt, Agnis (Judi Dench). Once there, he gets a job writing the Shipping News column for the local paper. Along the way, he develops a few friendships and a romantic attachment to a widow, Wavey (Julianne Moore), who, like Quoyle, was once involved in an unhappy marriage.
Many movies of this ilk are about the triumph over adversity. The Shipping News takes a different approach - it's about surviving adversity through adaptation. None of the characters in this film undergo a sudden transformation as a result of circumstances. Instead, they change gradually, as circumstances dictate. Quoyle becomes more assertive, Agnis confronts a dark secret in her past, Wavey learns to open up, and Bunny becomes able to move forward without her mother. The bleak Canadian coastline provides an externalization of the grim struggles playing out within the hearts and souls of the protagonists. There is guilt and redemption, although little catharsis as a result of the latter.
The tone selected by director Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules, Chocolat) is appropriate for the setting: cold and unfeeling. We never develop any sort of an emotional bond with these characters. We understand their turmoil and difficulties from an intellectual point-of-view, but never feel along with them. The Shipping News turns us into detached observers. Contrast that with The Cider House Rules, which deals with some of the same themes and issues (incest, finding one's place in life, etc.), but does so in a manner that draws viewers in rather than pushing them away. One of the fundamental problems with The Shipping News is that we don't connect with the characters, even though they are the most ordinary of individuals. And, because there is such an emotional gulf, sections of the movie move at a glacial pace. This is not the longest movie of the 2001 holiday season, but it seems like it is.
The film's ending is curious. There's no real sense of closure, and not even a natural stopping point. The Shipping News just... ends. Cue the credits. Much is left unexplored and unresolved. One might argue that life is like that, but to pull the plug on the movie at this moment seems awkward. In another year, I guarantee I won't remember how The Shipping News ends because it doesn't really have a conclusion.
As usual, Kevin Spacey turns in a fine performance, although this role doesn't require much in the way of range. Quoyle fits into Spacey's patented gallery of sad-sacks and losers. Like Spacey, Julianne Moore finds the right note in underplaying Wavey. Dame Judi Dench, who seems to have become a Miramax contract player (aside from her recurring part as "M" opposite Pierce Brosnan's James Bond, the only movies she shows up in these days are Miramax releases), is surprisingly flat. Other semi-familiar faces like Scott Glenn, Rhys Ifans (the nutty roommate in Notting Hill), and Pete Postlethwaite make appearances.
This isn't really an actors' movie, however. The angry scenery, beautifully captured by Oliver Stapleton, steals too many scenes. There's a kind of wild beauty associated with the stormy Newfoundland coast that Stapleton's cinematography captures. Also noteworthy is Christopher Young's score (which sounds similar to Bill Whelan's composition for Some Mother's Son). But these elements, important as they are, cannot overcome the shortcomings of an uneven script and remote tone. The Shipping News deals with weighty issues and is intellectually intriguing, but I found myself uninvolved from start to finish.
© 2001 James Berardinelli