Lasse Hallestrom's *The Shipping News* actually does people a favor: it spares them from having to read the novel by E. Annie Proulx, on which it's based. I assure you, the novel is no better. If you haven't read the book, the film will encourage your suspicion that Literature (or "Lit'rature", as they say in Oxford and places like it) has degenerated to the point of extinction. After seeing the film, you will be astonished that this nonsense, in its novel-form, won the National Book Award. (Or was it the Pulitzer?) But then you'll recall that the folks at the National Book Award just gave Stephen King some sort of Lifetime Achievement Award, so how can you say that you're surprised?
But this is a review of the movie, not the book, so I'd better get to the point, eh? First of all, we have Kevin Spacey, who has sadly become the guarantor of bad, maudlin movies. Here, he plays Quoyle (pronounced "Coil"), an apparently half-witted man who, thanks to a plot contrivance, gets involved with a slut played by Cate Blanchett. You won't believe your eyes when you see Blanchett (whose character's name is "Petal" -- can we get more "lit'ry"?) ride Spacey like a mechanical bull. Only in the movies . . . and in today's prize-winning lit'rature, I guess. Naturally, the doofus gets the slut pregnant -- enter new daughter "Bunny" (I guess we CAN get more lit'ry). Well, Petal proves to be averse to family life and -- NOT a spoiler, this is very early in the film -- takes a powder, dying in a car wreck with a new boyfriend. Hilariously, the police tell Quoyle that Petal sold Bunny to an "adoption slave-ring". Now THIS is Lit'rature, folks!
Judi Dench shows up and steals the ashes of Quoyle's father. I forgot to mention, Quoyle's parents had died at some point during all this, and Dench is the sister of Quoyle's father. Which makes her, of course, Spacey's aunt. To quote Don Henley, Are you with me so far? Dench spirits Quoyle and Bunny away to their ancestral home of Newfoundland for a fresh start. (Proulx' choice of setting is a typical lit'ry cliche: New - Found - Land. Get it?) You're probably wondering why Dench stole her brother's ashes. It's so that she can urinate on them after dumping them in an outhouse toilet. Ah-HA -- there must be some sort of Deep, Dark, Lit'ry Secret behind all this!
This is getting wearisome, so let me wrap it up like a Newfoundland cod. Quoyle gets a job as a reporter for the local rag and meets Julianne Moore, a widow of four years whose single status is extremely unlikely in such a small community. Meanwhile, the Quoyle family lives in a tied-down house on a cliff above the beach that's so drafty one wonders why they're not all dead from pneumonia by the end of the movie. Spacey learns how to use a boat, and finds decapitated bodies in the sea. His daughter beats old dolls to death with hammers, and befriends Moore's retarded young son. A skinny ghost with a pet lurks about the tied-down house, leaving trash on the doorstep in the dead of night. Everyone eats squid hamburgers. One character rises from the dead like Lazarus, thereby ending a salty old curse. Magic realism, hidden tragedies, "broken people" -- all the usual ingredients that constitute today's crappy literature.
The biggest revelation in *The Shipping News* is how good Cate Blanchett looks with her pants off. Other than that, it's just another Miramax film. You've been warned.
But this is a review of the movie, not the book, so I'd better get to the point, eh? First of all, we have Kevin Spacey, who has sadly become the guarantor of bad, maudlin movies. Here, he plays Quoyle (pronounced "Coil"), an apparently half-witted man who, thanks to a plot contrivance, gets involved with a slut played by Cate Blanchett. You won't believe your eyes when you see Blanchett (whose character's name is "Petal" -- can we get more "lit'ry"?) ride Spacey like a mechanical bull. Only in the movies . . . and in today's prize-winning lit'rature, I guess. Naturally, the doofus gets the slut pregnant -- enter new daughter "Bunny" (I guess we CAN get more lit'ry). Well, Petal proves to be averse to family life and -- NOT a spoiler, this is very early in the film -- takes a powder, dying in a car wreck with a new boyfriend. Hilariously, the police tell Quoyle that Petal sold Bunny to an "adoption slave-ring". Now THIS is Lit'rature, folks!
Judi Dench shows up and steals the ashes of Quoyle's father. I forgot to mention, Quoyle's parents had died at some point during all this, and Dench is the sister of Quoyle's father. Which makes her, of course, Spacey's aunt. To quote Don Henley, Are you with me so far? Dench spirits Quoyle and Bunny away to their ancestral home of Newfoundland for a fresh start. (Proulx' choice of setting is a typical lit'ry cliche: New - Found - Land. Get it?) You're probably wondering why Dench stole her brother's ashes. It's so that she can urinate on them after dumping them in an outhouse toilet. Ah-HA -- there must be some sort of Deep, Dark, Lit'ry Secret behind all this!
This is getting wearisome, so let me wrap it up like a Newfoundland cod. Quoyle gets a job as a reporter for the local rag and meets Julianne Moore, a widow of four years whose single status is extremely unlikely in such a small community. Meanwhile, the Quoyle family lives in a tied-down house on a cliff above the beach that's so drafty one wonders why they're not all dead from pneumonia by the end of the movie. Spacey learns how to use a boat, and finds decapitated bodies in the sea. His daughter beats old dolls to death with hammers, and befriends Moore's retarded young son. A skinny ghost with a pet lurks about the tied-down house, leaving trash on the doorstep in the dead of night. Everyone eats squid hamburgers. One character rises from the dead like Lazarus, thereby ending a salty old curse. Magic realism, hidden tragedies, "broken people" -- all the usual ingredients that constitute today's crappy literature.
The biggest revelation in *The Shipping News* is how good Cate Blanchett looks with her pants off. Other than that, it's just another Miramax film. You've been warned.