Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1936 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-08-01
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Italian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.co.uk 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

Special Features
Dive Beneath the Surface
Feature Commentary with Director Lasse Hallstrom
Still Gallery

Synopsis
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.

Customer Reviews

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 Kevin Spacey. Shy and underachieving Quoyle is working as an ink setter for the Poughkeepsie News in upstate New York when he and his life are picked up and well and truly shaken by the entry of the beautiful and dangerous Petal. They marry and have a child called Bunny but then it dawns on Quoyle that what he has really married is a top level tramp as Petal stays out drinking and tramping with a variety of other men. When Quoyle receives the news that his parents have died and Petal realises there is no inheritance to be had she skips town with her latest beau and Bunny leaving poor Quoyle stranded. Hours later Petal has “sold” Bunny to an illegal adoption agency and has wound up dead in a serious car accident.

Next on the scene is Quoyle’s aunt, Agnis Hamm, who decides that what is best for Quoyle is for him to leave two and set up home again in the old family home located in a remote Newfoundland fishing village. The location is wind swept and isolated but through new friends met in his new job, writing the fishing news for the local paper and the beautiful leader of the school, Wavey Prowse, Quoyle starts to rebuild his life again.

The acting performances are excellent, as I say Kevin Spacey is flawless as Quoyle although you so suspect the role isn’t that much of a strain for such a fine actor. Judi Dench as the redoubtable aunt Agnis sails through her part and Julianne Moore as Wavey is likewise well commended. I felt the best parts though were played by Cate Blanchett as the strumpet Petal (you won’t recognise her) and Quoyle’s colleagues on the Gammy Bird newspaper, Scott Glenn, Pete Postlethwaite, Rhys Ifans and ***** all deserve a mention. The filming is stunning and great use is made of the wild, bleak and remote location that it’s film in.

I thoroughly recommend this inspiring and moving film and would encourage all to watch it.

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 you have to endure the coming in-chapter: a bad life in New York, where Quoyle is overwhelmed by hussy type Petal (Cate Blanchett), a wild, hot-blooded woman, wearing a ton of make-up and short rubber mini-skirts, always looking for excitement with good time guys and honky-tonks, by whom Quoyle has a child, Bunny. Petal soon dies in a car crash with one of her boyfriends, short after Bunny was sold by her to a black-market child adoption ring for six thousand dollars. Moreover Quoyle's parents commit suicide. In this terrible situation (daughter Bunny is found by police) Aunt Agnes Hamm (Judi Dench) appears and Quoyle is convinced by her to move to their ancestral home on the Newfoundland coast. Quoyle takes a job as a reporter for the local newspaper The Gammy Bird and starts to rebuild his life, though the weight of an awful past bears down. Encouraged by the publisher Jack Buggit (Scott Glenn) and by Wavey Prowse (Julianne Moore), the owner of a day care center, Quoyle has to change his loser-life fighting against his demons and the demons of his ancestors. Also Aunt Angie or the "widow" Wavey have their nightmares, but together they get all problems under control. For example the mobbing of an oil-tanker-adoring journalist (Pete Postlethwaite) or getting overboard without a life-belt or losing the house tethered on a storm-wracked cliff during a heavy, cathartic storm. (And at the side there is a romance between Quoyle's daughter Bunny and Moore's son, who suffered brain damage during birth.) Spacey and Moore are wonderful as they, at her lowest point, try to overcome their damaged hearts and love once more. So they all recover from the terrors of their past lives, especially Quoyle's transformation from passive victim into a whole human being is heart-felt. It is good to see films like that, just a shame there is not more.