The Shipping News Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)December 23rd, 2001
THE SHIPPING NEWS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
Lasse Hallström's THE SHIPPING NEWS, a schmaltzy snoozer, is Miramax's canonical weeper for the Christmas season. I'm not a fan of Lasse Hallström's THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, but it is superior to THE SHIPPING NEWS, which, even if it is based on a popular novel, isn't much of a movie. Filled with eccentric characters of the type that you never find in real life, the rambling movie doesn't go much of anywhere and then stops randomly and abruptly. There are the odd satisfying incidents, but, overall, it just marks time.
Quoyle (Kevin Spacey), the story's central character, is a blue collar worker who is devoid of confidence. A fling with a stranger named Petal Bear (Cate Blanchett) produces a child. A pudgy-faced Spacey has never been made to look worse, and Blanchett, in her hooker-reject clothes, is the complete opposite of a soccer mom.
One day, Aunt Agnis (Judi Dench) arrives on Quoyle's door. Not long afterwards, Agnis, Quoyle and his daughter leave to go to live in the family home in far away Newfoundland, which Agnis pronounces as Newfound Land. The house is in ruins and holds more than one deep, dark family secret under its rotting roof. They arrive in a huge, blowing June snowstorm, which nonpluses Quoyle and the audience. Agnis tries to explain how unexplainable the Newfoundland weather can be. (The most inexplicable part of the weather is the way that they go to bed when there is deep snow outside and wake up to find that it has almost entirely vanished by early next morning.)
Jack Buggit (Scott Glenn), the owner of the small local newspaper, gives Quoyle a job as a reporter, a position for which he feels totally incapable. Jack tries to make it simple by describing one of the paper's guiding principles. "We run a front page picture of a car wreck every week, whether we have one or not," Jack tells Quoyle. All Quoyle has to do is go to all of the car wrecks, of which there are plenty -- people drop like flies in this town -- and record what he sees.
Although there are a few choice moments, with one of the best being an incident to rival SHREK's outhouse scene, most of the manipulative film is completely forgettable. Perhaps those who loved the novel, which I've never read, will be equally pleased with its motion picture adaptation. Personally, I didn't care about any of the characters, and I had trouble staying awake since so little of interest happened. Skip this syrupy movie. If you have a sugar urge, bake up a fresh batch of Christmas cookies instead.
THE SHIPPING NEWS runs 2:00. It is rated R for "some language, sexuality and disturbing images" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Christmas Day, 2001. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas, the AMC theaters and the Century theaters.
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