|
Carter Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) lives a numbed, unchallenging day-to-day existence as an inksetter
for a newspaper. However, Petal, a prostitute (Cate Blanchette) suddenly barges into his life and just as suddenly leaves him, after they have had a daughter, Bunny. He meets
an aunt, Agnis (Judi Dench) who urges him to go home with her to Newfoundland, the ancestral home of the Quoyles. Carter applies for work at the local paper as inksetter—the
only job he knows—but its publisher insists that he be a reporter, handling a column, "The Shipping News". This is too much for his limitations, and he declines. The publisher
is insistent. Will he take up the challenge? Will he be able to adapt to the life in the new environment?
Based on the "The Shipping News," a novel written by E. Annie Proulx, the film focuses mainly on
what happens to Carter in Newfoundland, and the gradual transformation he undergoes interacting with the people and the new environment. Kevin Spacey is surprisingly good as
the nondescript person who undergoes an eventual change of character. Judi Dench displays her own talent as Agnis who must face her own ghosts of the past and comes to terms
with them. Julieanne Moore and Cate Blanchette give their own significant contribution to their roles, though short.
Having been dinned into his consciousness, that he is a failure because he has been unable to
learn anything that his father has been trying to teach him, Carter Quoyle grows up a dull and plodding person content with his monotonous uninteresting existence. He remains
this way until he comes into a new environment and meets new people who refuse to let him be. They insist on his taking the challenge of what need to be done, and refuse to
give up on him. Slowly and gradually, he begins to "wake up" from his stupor, as it were, and learn to become a more positive and assertive person. Agnis Quoyle decides to go
back to her past to resolve the conflicts in her person, while Wavey (Julianne Moore) becomes more open about herself as she and Quoyle develop a relationship. Until a person
is able to come to terms with himself and his past, will he be able to move on and live a meaningful future.
(Date reviewed: March 15, 2002)
|
