| The visual landscape of Newfoundland is dominated by the overwhelming vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. Tides come and go, waves lash against the rocks, and ships both large and small dot the horizon.
Much like staring into the ocean itself, the more you look at Lasse Hallström’s film adaptation of E. Annie Proulx’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Shipping News, the less that happens.
Earlier responsible for the weepy makeover of John Irving’s The Cider House Rules (and, um, ABBA: The Movie), Hallström perfects his technique of snipping complex and uncompromising novels for a happy ending. As the king of quaint simplification, and a master of abridgement rivaled only by Reader’s Digest, Hallström ponders the 352 pages of The Shipping News merely to ask, "What else can I cut?"
We know right away that Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) has issues with both his family (he nearly drowned when his father pushed him from a dock to teach him how to swim) and the water (same reason – duh). Through the wonders of computer-generated imaging, the helplessly floating young Quoyle morphs into a stone-faced and leaden Spacey, whose character coasts from one dead-end job to another.
The rest of the movie is so packed with "major events" that very little is allowed to make an impact. Hallström’s not the only quick operator in town – Quoyle meets Petal (Cate Blanchett), a woman with a belt buckle as loose as her morals.
She and Quoyle end up having a child they christen Bunny (played by Alyssa, Kaitlin and Lauren Gainer), who Petal sells for $6,000 to a black market adoption agency after hitting the road with another fella in a hot rod.
Moments later, Petal’s dead in a car crash, Quoyle’s parents have committed joint suicide – but not before one last phone call berating Quoyle for his lack of potential – and, phew, Aunt Agnis (Dame Judi Dench) just happens to "pass troo" for a visit. Accordingly, Spacey looks dazed, confused and a little hungry.
Proulx is a master storyteller, capable of intertwining an epic number of sub-plots and characters into a cohesive and complete whole. Crammed into a two-hour film, The Shipping News becomes an under-examined barrage with very little effect.
Hallström’s slash-and-burn methods are never more obvious than when Quoyle stumbles across a headless body floating in the bay, in the process sinking his own boat. The next morning, Quoyle’s dried out and the body is all but forgotten – a wire arrives later announcing the murder’s been solved offscreen.
But it doesn’t really matter much anyway – the townsfolk are too preoccupied with pirate tales, incest and fishing to notice.
As a man without time to develop any sort of emotion, Quoyle’s story of lost love is difficult to relate to, even when he finds new hope in Wavey (Julianne Moore with an awkward Newfie accent). By force-feeding a Coles Notes version of Proulx’s novel down the audience’s throat, Hallström pushes us out of the story, and entirely out of reach of an emotional response.
If nothing else, The Shipping News is notable for a scene in which the distinguished Dame Dench dumps the ashes of a deceased character down the outhouse hole and audibly urinates on the remains, spitefully welcoming them "home." Since Hallström’s figuratively done the same thing to Proulx’s novel, it’s a fitting visual. |
