In association with

The Shipping News [2002]
from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm
starring Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Pete Postlethwaite
directed by Lasse Hallström

Features:

• PAL

Editorial Review:

E Annie Proulx's "quirky" bestseller The Shipping News gets the Lasse Hallstrom treatment, but the results don't match Chocolat or The Cider House Rules. Lifelong loser Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) suffers in a terrible wig--abused by his bitter Dad, snoozing through dead-end jobs, overwhelmed by a mad Cate Blanchett. On the same day, his parents commit suicide and runaway Petal drowns in a car crash. With ominous Aunt Agnis (Judi Dench) and angelic daughter Bunny, Quoyle relocates to Quoyle Point, moving into a dilapidated family house tethered on a storm-wracked cliff. He takes a job as a reporter, fitting into a feud between owner (Scott Glenn) and editor (Pete Postlethwaite) and begins a tenuous romance with widow Wavey (Julianne Moore). Happiness threatens, but the weight of an awful past bears down, along with premonitions of doom, decapitation murders and a lot of bad weather...until a cathartic storm sorts it all out. Spare Spacey, miscast as the novel's obese hero, underplays to the point of invisibility. As a Gothic soap, it has a few laughs; but it's hard to take seriously. --Kim Newman

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• shipping news
  Well theres 2 hours of my life i'll never get back!
  Yes Mr.Spacey, brilliant as always, makes the role of quoyle so believable, & earns the 2 stars , up from zero, but talk about YAWN!! All in all a boring & pointless film about loosers.

• The Shipping News
  “The Shipping News” is the film of the book of the same name written by E. Annie Proulx and apparently it won the Pulitzer Prize. I’ve also read that the book is a lot more complex and involved that the film dares to be. I’ve not read the book so I can’t comment on any of the above but what I will say is that I enjoyed the film tremendously from the start to finish and found it a thoughtful and entertaining piece of cinema.

  The story concerns one of life’s losers, Quoyle played by the terrific... more info

• how to get things under control ...
  Annie Proulx, she has a very much endowed vein for fine-intimately spoken humor. Her novel SHIPPING NEWS won the Pulitzer Prize. The Swedish director Lasse Hallström ("The Cider House Rules", "What's eating Gilbert Grape" and "Chocolat") brought it full of genius to screen. It is a MUST to see the scene, where the ancestors of Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) are pulling by rope their house across the ice. The pictures shot on location (Killick-Claw, a Newfoundland harbor town) are simply wonderful. But at first... more info

• "In me my father recognized a failed life."
  Quoyle (Kevin Spacey), a New York inksetter with little imagination and even less confidence, finds himself, amazingly, married to Petal (Cate Blanchett), a wild, hot-blooded woman, always looking for excitement, by whom he has a child, Bunny (played by Alyssa, Lauren, and Kaitlyn Gainer). After Petal dies in a car crash, Quoyle reconnects with his Aunt Agnis (Judi Dench), who has come to New York after the death of her brother, Quoyle's father. Both at a loss, they decide to return to the family home in... more info

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