You won't be disappointed!

Sorry, this movie sucks

Admirable film.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

If you have time to kill and watch great actors deliver bad acting, watch it. With such names as Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, I was expecting a great drama. Instead I waste precious time when I could have been watching reruns of 3rd Rock From the Sun and LMAO! I should sue to get this time back. And I expected much more from AP. The dialogue from Moore, Dench and others at times was impossible to discern what was being said. Maybe I should watch it again with the closed-captioning turned on. I'm just so disappointed in KS from his past performances in 'American Beauty', '21', 'Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil', 'K-Pax'.

"The Shipping News" is an exceptionally good film. However, it is so unconventional, so slow and so anti-Hollywood in style that I am pretty sure it's NOT a film that most folks would enjoy. However, if you appreciate a film that accentuates acting and story instead of explosions and breasts, then it may just be the film for you! Kevin Spacey plays a man simply called 'Quoyle'. Quoyle is a sad sort of man--emotionally constricted and bullied by his uncaring father. Inexplicably, he falls for a woman who turns out to be a complete tramp--and this is being very kindly towards the woman to refer to her this way! The woman is simply no good and cheats on Quoyle--right in front of him. But, he's so dependent and thinks so little of herself that he accepts this. He even grieves when the woman dies after she leaves him AND tries to sell her daughter!! Quoyle has no idea what to do with his life when an aunt he doesn't know (Judi Dench) arrives. Together, they both leave the States and move back to the family homestead in VERY rural Newfoundland. What's next? See the film.There is a lot more to the film than this but frankly describing the plot is silly, as it's more a slice of life film where the focus is much more on the characters and acting. In other words, what happens is far less important than seeing it happen. A slow but gentle film--I really liked it and wish there were more films like this. Well worth your time if you are patient and don't mind an unconventional story.

Based on Annie Proulx's novel, Lasse Hallström's 'The Shipping News' starts off a little slow. At first, I thought it would be one of those Hollywood adaptations loaded with dramatic clichés but as the story moves on and the characters build up, it makes a better turn. The film appears to centre around Quoyle and his struggle to find a new life after the death of his promiscuous vampish wife (whose last act was selling their daughter to a black market adoption agency,unbeknownst to Quoyle). However, the supporting characters (even though they have limited screen time) are equally important because they all have a dark secret and that's what 'The Shipping News' is about, how sharing a secret can set someone free from burden.The film beautifully captures Newfoundland, right from the somewhat barren yet stunning landscape to the local culture. The cinematography, art direction and score contribute well to the atmosphere. Newfoundland itself is presented as a character.Even though I found the pacing to be a little uneven, the refreshing subtle humour balances well with the quiet intense scenes. Spacey's Quoyle appears to be a tad monotonous in the first half. There was something lacking in Spacey's performance during this portion a but the actor does manage to do much more with the role in the second half. Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Pete Postlethwaite and Cate Blanchett are superb. Even though Blanchett's character is poorly developed, the actress rises above it. The rest of the cast especially Scott Glenn, Rhys Ifans, Gordon Pinsent and Jason Behr are just as brilliant.'The Shipping News' may have its flaws but it's visually intriguing, well acted and funny. In the end, it is a worthy film experience.

Laborious, ungodly concoction, derived from E. Annie Proulx's novel, plays like a John Ford movie without Maureen O'Hara. Sad-sack single father, having recently lost the mother of his child in a car accident (after she apparently sold the little girl in the black market, who was then rescued), starts life anew in Newfoundland; he earns his mettle as a reporter on the newspaper staff, and falls in love with what appears to be the only single woman in town (this being a cookie-cutter picture at heart, she naturally returns his affections). The clichéd townspeople are made up of bull-headed fisherman and salty old codgers, each with an axe to grind (they're stock figures left over from the 1940s). Kevin Spacey's look of bewilderment and shock is appropriate for the leading character, but acting benumbed doesn't do much for the audience. His rapport with the ladies (Cate Blanchett as the loose-living Petal, Julianne Moore as the well-scrubbed Wavey, and Judi Dench as Aunt Agnis) is warm without being too convincing, while the scenario (cluttered up with pirates and ghosts and curses and a house held down by ropes) verges on the ridiculous. Lasse Hallström directs, shamelessly. *1/2 from ****