It’s an end-of-month archival expansion, and this only slightly redacted review of The Shipping News, from its theatrical bow in 2001, is now being added to the rolls. To wit: is a punching bag of a man whose hell-on-wheels wife Petal Bear (Cate Blanchett) doesn’t even bother to conceal her flagrant cheating. Her flamboyant demise, combined with the passing of another relative and the arrival of Quoyle’s long-lost aunt Agnis (Judi Dench) leads the aforementioned adults, along with daughter Bunny in tow, to their ancestral home of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:State><st1:place>Newfoundland</st1:place></st1:State>.<BR><BR>There Quoyle lands a job at the Gammy Bird, the local paper, covering auto wrecks and, yes, the shipping news. He makes friends with his odd bird co-workers (<I>Notting Hill</I>’s Rhys Ifans and Gordon Pinsent) but bumps heads with the caretaker editor (Pete Postlethwaite), a power-hungry passive-aggressive jerk who runs things for an oft-absent publisher (Scott Glenn). Eventually, though, the responsibilities of his job (which he grows to enjoy) along with the casual, halting courtship of single mother Wavey Prowse (Julianne Moore), nudge Quoyle toward a more proactive life.<BR><BR>The movie condenses and abandons a few of the novel’s darker elements (gone are Quoyle’s second daughter, as well as Petal Bear’s original, even grimmer abandonment of Bunny), and while these changes by and large work they fundamentally change the nature of the story. I get that it’s <B>a sort of paean to small town community</B>, and Hallstrom has an undeniable knack for these types of stories, but with <I>The Cider House Rules</I>, <I>Chocolat</I> and now <I>The Shipping News</I>, <B>it’s also apparent that Hallstrom detests the possibility of naked human conflict; all three movies exist in sleepy subtext</B>, subtext that Hallstrom refuses to drag out into the light of day. <B>(Miramax, R, 111 minutes)</B><o:p></o:p></p>
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It’s an end-of-month archival expansion, and this only slightly redacted review of The Shipping News, from its theatrical bow in 2001, is now being added to the rolls. To wit: