The Shipping News (film)

The Shipping News
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Lasse Hallström
Screenplay by	Robert Nelson Jacobs
Based on	The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Produced by	Irwin Winkler Linda Goldstein Knowlton Leslie Holleran
Starring	Kevin Spacey Julianne Moore Judi Dench Scott Glenn Rhys Ifans Pete Postlethwaite Cate Blanchett
Cinematography	Oliver Stapleton
Edited by	Andrew Mondshein
Music by	Christopher Young
Production company	Miramax Films
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release date	December 25, 2001 (2001-12-25)
Running time	111 minutes
Countries	United States Canada
Language	English
Budget	$38 million
Box office	$24.6 million

The Shipping News is a 2001 romantic drama film directed by Lasse Hallström and written by Robert Nelson Jacobs. It is based on the 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by E. Annie Proulx. The film stars Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Scott Glenn, Rhys Ifans, Pete Postlethwaite, and Cate Blanchett. The narrative centers on Quoyle, a struggling newspaper pressman who relocates with his young daughter from Upstate New York to his ancestral home in a remote Newfoundland fishing village following a series of personal tragedies.

The film was released theatrically in the United States and Canada on December 25, 2001, by Miramax Films. It received mixed reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office, grossing approximately $24.6 million worldwide against a production budget of $38 million.

At the 55th British Academy Film Awards, Spacey and Dench received nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role, respectively. The film also earned two nominations at the 59th Golden Globe Awards and two at the 7th Critics' Choice Awards, including a nod for Best Picture.

Plot

As a child, Quoyle is traumatized when his father, Guy, throws him into a lake in an attempt to teach him to swim. These memories resurface during times of stress in his adult life. Quoyle, now an ink setter at a small newspaper in Poughkeepsie, New York, leads a lonely and emotionally repressed existence. He marries Petal, a free-spirited but unfaithful woman, with whom he has a daughter, Bunny. Petal eventually abandons Quoyle and sells Bunny to an illegal adoption broker for $6,000 before dying in a car accident with her lover. Bunny is recovered and returned to Quoyle by authorities.

Around the same time, Quoyle's parents die by suicide. His aunt, Agnis Hamm, arrives for the memorial, secretly intending to dispose of her brother Guy's ashes. She later persuades Quoyle and Bunny to join her in relocating to their ancestral home in Newfoundland, a coastal house that has been abandoned for over four decades.

In Newfoundland, Quoyle begins rebuilding his life. He secures a job at the Gammy Bird, a local newspaper, where publisher Jack Buggit assigns him to cover car accidents and shipping news, despite Quoyle's lack of reporting experience. With the support of fellow journalist Billy Pretty, he gradually finds his voice as a writer. Quoyle also begins writing a weekly column on local boats, which becomes popular with readers.

Meanwhile, Agnis resumes her profession as a boat upholsterer. She reveals to Quoyle that she once had a long-term female partner who died of leukemia and confides that she was raped as a teenager by her brother, Quoyle’s father, resulting in a terminated pregnancy.

Quoyle develops a bond with Wavey Prowse, a local woman raising her young son, Harry, who has a learning disability. Though initially claiming to be widowed, Wavey later admits her husband abandoned her. As Quoyle and Wavey grow closer, he uncovers unsettling aspects of his family’s history—namely, that his ancestors were pirates who ran ships aground to loot them and that the ancestral house was moved across a frozen bay to its current location, known as Quoyle’s Point.

When Jack Buggit dies during a storm while tending his boat, his son Dennis prepares to take over the fishing license. Jack is later revived at his wake, having fallen into a hypothermic coma, and passes the license to Dennis, ending a generational fear of dying at sea. The event causes Bunny to briefly believe her mother could have been similarly revived, but she eventually accepts her mother’s death.

During the winter, Quoyle and his family move to town while their house is being renovated. One night, Bunny dreams the house has been blown away. They visit the site and find it destroyed, symbolizing the family's release from their troubled past and a new beginning.

Cast

• Kevin Spacey as Quoyle
• Julianne Moore as Wavey Prowse
• Judi Dench as Agnis Hamm
• Cate Blanchett as Petal
• Pete Postlethwaite as Tert Card
• Scott Glenn as Jack Buggit
• Rhys Ifans as Beaufield Nutbeem
• Gordon Pinsent as Billy Pretty
• Jason Behr as Dennis Buggit
• Larry Pine as Bayonet Melville
• Jeanetta Arnette as Silver Melville
• Katherine Moennig as Grace Moosup
• Marc Lawrence as Cousin Nolan
• John Dunsworth as Guy Quoyle

Production

The film adaptation of The Shipping News underwent significant development changes from its original conception. Initially, director Fred Schepisi was attached to the project, with John Travolta slated to play the lead role of Quoyle. However, creative differences arose between Schepisi and Columbia Pictures, particularly regarding the screenplay's fidelity to E. Annie Proulx's novel. Schepisi favored a version penned by Laura Jones that closely adhered to the source material, portraying Quoyle as an overweight, socially awkward man relocating to Newfoundland. Conversely, the studio advocated for a more conventional romantic narrative. These disagreements led to Schepisi and Travolta's departure from the project.

Subsequently, Lasse Hallström assumed directorial duties, and Kevin Spacey was cast as Quoyle. The final film, while broadly following the novel's plot, implemented several notable changes. In the adaptation, Quoyle is depicted as of average build and has a single daughter, whereas the novel portrays him as obese with two daughters. Additionally, the film presents Quoyle as a timid ink setter who begins writing as a reporter only after moving to Newfoundland, differing from the novel, where he is already an established journalist. Several characters from the book, such as members of the younger Buggit family, were either omitted or amalgamated for the film.

Reception

Box office

The Shipping News grossed $11,434,216 in the United States and Canada and $13,256,225 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $24,690,441. With a production budget of $38 million, the film was considered a box-office disappointment.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 54% of 131 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Though solidly made and acted, The Shipping News is rather heavy-handed and dull, especially given the nature of its protagonist." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 47 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

Stephen Holden of The New York Times stated, "Although the misconception of Mr. Spacey's character gives The Shipping News a hopelessly mushy center, the surrounding performances lend the movie some ballast" and "The Shipping News is finally too efficient for its own good. Instead of giving you the book, it leaves you with the unfulfilled sense of having leafed through an elegant, studiously captioned photo essay of the same material."

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The nominally emotional moments feel unearned, partially because many of the book's edges and eccentricities have been softened, and the film's 'we face up to things we're afraid of because we can't go around them' philosophy is not particularly inspired. All that's left is the severe beauty of Newfoundland, which catches the eye but, like the rest of the proceedings, does little for the soul."

Rita Kempley of The Washington Post opined that Lasse Hallström "ably brings the communities to life, though this film has neither the tastiness of the one nor the bite of the other. For better or worse, it smells of salt air, squid burgers and fishing boats. It's worth seeing at the very least because it is so different from standard Hollywood fare."

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described The Shipping News as "a profoundly tiresome, unconvincing, formulaic emotional blockbuster with some of the most outrageous accents" and stated, "This movie has an Irving-esque habit of mixing sugary material with stuff like incest, rape, suicide. It all leaves a very strange taste in the mouth, and fails to convince that this slushy tale is anything other than a strident, uninteresting bore."

Accolades

Award	Date of the ceremony	Category	Recipients	Result	Ref.
National Board of Review	5 December 2001	Best Supporting Actress	Cate Blanchett (also for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Man Who Cried)	won
Florida Film Critics Circle	2 January 2002	Best Supporting Actress	Cate Blanchett (also for Bandits, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Man Who Cried)	won
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association	3 January 2002	Best Supporting Actress	Judi Dench	nom
Critics' Choice Movie Awards	11 January 2002	Top 10 Films	The Shipping News	won
		Best Picture		nom
		Best Score	Christopher Young	nom
Golden Globe Awards	20 January 2002	Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama	Kevin Spacey	nom
		Best Original Score	Christopher Young	nom
Berlin International Film Festival	6–17 February 2002	Golden Bear	Lasse Hallström	nom
Art Directors Guild	23 February 2002	Excellence in Production Design for a Contemporary Film	David Gropman	nom
British Academy Film Awards	24 February 2002	Best Actor in a Leading Role	Kevin Spacey	nom
		Best Actress in a Supporting Role	Judi Dench	nom
Screen Actors Guild Awards	10 March 2002	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role		nom
USC Scripter Awards	16 March 2002	Scripter Award	Robert Nelson Jacobs (screenplay) and E. Annie Proulx (novel)	nom
Young Artist Awards	7 April 2002	Best Ensemble in a Feature Film	Andrew Fowler, Alyssa Gainer, Kaitlyn Gainer, Lauren Gainer, Will McAllister, and Kyle Timothy Smith.	nom

External links

• Official website
• The Shipping News at IMDb