Taglines: You’ll never guess what you’ll find inside…
The Shipping News opens with Quoyle’s father tossing him into water, expecting him to naturally swim. The image of Quoyle struggling to swim is reprised several times in later crises. Flash forward to an adult Quoyle (Kevin Spacey), who lives a lonely life and works as an inksetter in a small newspaper in Poughkeepsie, New York. Deciding to make a life for himself, he meets and marries a outgoing local woman named Petal (Cate Blanchett).
Six years later, the emotionally distant and promiscuous Petal runs off with a lover, only to die soon after in a car accident, leaving Quoyle with their six-year-old daughter Bunny (whom Petal had sold off for $6,000 to an illegal adoption agency). Quoyle’s Aunt Agnis (Judi Dench) happens to be visiting when the news arrives that Quoyle’s estranged father and mother committed suicide together in a pact. Agnis is moving to the ancestral family home in Newfoundland, which has been abandoned for 44 years. Realizing that Quoyle is at a total loss through grief, she first offers to stay a few more days and help him through the crisis, and then persuades him to move with her to the Quoyle family house in Newfoundland.
While struggling to rebuild his life, fix up the derelict house, and care for his daughter, Quoyle meets local resident Wavey Prowse (Julianne Moore), a widow with a pre-teen boy. Wavey’s son and Quoyle’s daughter become friends while the two adults become friends and then more. Wavey has dark secrets in her past, but so does the Quoyle family. Quoyle takes a job at the local newspaper Gammy Bird as a car-crash writer and accident/crime scene photographer to support himself and his daughter.
The Shipping News is a 2001 drama film directed by Lasse Hallström, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. It stars Kevin Spacey as Quoyle, Judi Dench as Agnis Hamm, and Julianne Moore as Wavey Prowse. It also stars Cate Blanchett, Pete Postlethwaite, Scott Glenn, Rhys Ifans, Jason Behr, and Gordon Pinsent.
The film, while broadly following the plot of the book, makes several changes; notably, Quoyle was obese and had two daughters in the novel, but only one in the film. He’s only a timid ink setter in the film and he does not begin writing as a brave reporter until after arriving in Newfoundland. Another difference is that several characters, such as the younger Buggit family, were deleted or merged.
The Shipping News (2001)
Directed by: Lasse Hallström
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Pete Postlethwaite, Gordon Pinsent, Scott Glenn, Jason Behr, Roman Podhora, Alyssa Gainer, Jeannetta Arnette
Screenplay by: E. Annie Proulx
Production Design by; David Gropman
Cinematography by: David Gropman
Costume Design by: Renee Ehrlich Kalfus
Set Decoration by: Patricia Larman
Art Direction by: Karen Schulz Gropman
Makeup Department: Christine Hart, Tania McComas
Music by: Christopher Young
MPAA Rating: R for some language, sexuality and disturbing images.
Distributed by: Miramax Films
Release Date: December 18, 2001
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