The Shipping News
(2001)
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Lasse Hallstrom (CHOCOLAT, MY LIFE AS A DOG) presents this strong, quiet, chillingly deep adaptation of the popular novel by E. Annie Proulx. In a fishing port set in the Canadian province of Newfoundland, newspaper journalist Quoyle (Kevin Spacey), his young daughter Bunny (Alyssa Gainer), and his stern aunt Agnis Hamm (Dame Judi Dench) have reclaimed their ancestral home, which stood vacant for 40 years perched over the raging sea on the edge of a cliff. The fresh air and the mundane routine of the sleepy village act as a balm for Quoyle's wounds. Having grown up with unhappy parents who cautioned him that he'd never amount to anything, Quoyle thought he'd finally found a stroke of luck when he fell in love with Petal (a surprisingly slutty but no less beautiful Cate Blanchett), Bunny's mother. However, after Petal's sudden death, and the simultaneous passing of his loveless parents, Quoyle's migration from downtrodden Poughkeepsie, N.Y. to coastal Canada is his salvation. As Quoyle gains confidence and pride daily through his coworkers at the tiny newspaper the Gammy Bird, through his friendship with Wavey (a lovely Julianne Moore), and through his reconciliation with some spooky family secrets from the distant past, Quoyle, Bunny, and Agnis slowly find new direction, new hope, and the beginnings of a new life. |
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The icy mists, haunting sounds and shadows of the Newfoundland shores imbue The Shipping News with a bleak sadness that the intriguing storyline and strong performances fail to dispel. A miscast Kevin Spacey stars as Quoyle, a dull, uninspired man who is seduced into marriage and fatherhood by the sluttish Petal Bear (Cate Blanchett), then deserted and widowed in short order. An estranged aunt (Judi Dench) invites him and his daughter to return with her to the family home — a fishing village in Newfoundland, seemingly populated solely by eccentrics. Quoyle lands a job writing the shipping news on the local paper and begins a tentative love affair with widow Julianne Moore. However this glimmer of romantic hope and the eventual uncovering of disturbing family secrets aren't enough to energise Lasse Hallström's muted movie. Still, the always watchable Moore and Dench go a long way to compensate for the film's overall emotional chilliness, investing their characters with warmth and life.