Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10917 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

An unexpected gem - an intelligent and gentle-paced drama
This is not a film for those of you who like crash bang wallop Arnold Schwarzenneger movies. This is a movie for those of us that like to see characters lives being revealed as though you were pulling layers from an onion. On the whole, each character's murky past is both unexpected and credible. The weight of the past that each character carries is played extremely well and serves to drive your curiousity as to where each is going and what will happen next. Julianne Moore and Judi Dench are superb and Kevin Spacey plays his bewildered character very well. This was a film that I did not expect to find highly enjoyable - it is a rare treat in these days of perpetual 'formulaic' Hollywood conveyor belt movies....And look out for the scenery - truly amazing.

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.

"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 Newfoundland. The old house, tied down by cables to keep it from blowing away in storms, is still standing, though it has been empty for forty-four years, and the family moves in.

Working not as an inksetter but as a reporter for a local newspaper, Quoyle reports car crashes and the shipping news. Though he has no sense of drama and no real writing ability, he finds that some of the stories he uncovers interest people, and he begins to develop emotionally. Through his contact with a vivid local community and the friendships that evolve, he uncovers some of his own family history, shows a confidence he's never had before, and begins to face his personal demons, as do daughter Bunny and Aunt Agnis. Helping him along the way is Wavey Prowse (Julianne Moore), whose own life is as filled with dark secrets as that of the Quoyle family.

Adapting Annie Proulx's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to the screen, scriptwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs remains true to the characters of the novel, but sacrifices their depth and subtlety, leaving them hollow and lacking true motivation. Spacey effectively portrays Quoyle's awkwardness and naivete but plays each scene as if it were unconnected with those going before and after, and Julianne Moore, while sympathetic toward Quoyle, does not feel like a "real" Newfoundlander with emotional ties to the rest of the community. Because neither character is fully developed, the action, which is character-based, fails to move the viewer.

Oliver Stapleton's cinematography is coldly stark, filled with angry winds and weather but so beautifully photographed that in many ways it is the strongest aspect of the film. Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom, nominated for a Best Director Oscar for 1999's The Cider House Rules, here flits from scene to scene and subject to subject, never really developing the kind of tension and drama that comes from careful pacing and strong, fully drawn characters. More melodramatic and less humorous than the novel, the film is, nevertheless, an atmospheric and fascinating glimpse of a unique culture and way of life. Mary Whipple