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Movie Reviews from Rotten Tomatoes®
I am baffled by all the negativity surrounding it, and I am prepared to designate it as the most underrated film of 2001.
Full Review|Mar 13, 2002
I like good newspaper movies. Most of them get it completely wrong. In this case, it's exactly right.
Full Review|Jan 10, 2002A movie that engrosses, hypnotizes and clings to the memory long after the final frame.
Full Review|Jan 3, 2002It's hardly possible to overstate what a welcome change of pace The Shipping News is for admirers of Kevin Spacey.
Full Review|Dec 28, 2001Too muted to be counted as a fully successful big-screen translation of Annie Proulx's enormously popular novel, but there's a lot to like in it all the same.
Dec 26, 2001Deals with weighty issues and is intellectually intriguing, but I found myself uninvolved from start to finish.
Full Review|Dec 25, 2001The interior monologues and intense detail of the book don't transfer well to the big screen. When a guy is this bored with himself, why should we argue otherwise?
Full Review|Dec 25, 2001The nominally emotional moments feel unearned, partially because many of the book's edges and eccentricities have been softened.
Full Review|Dec 25, 2001A satisfying movie experience, a film you admire for its reluctance to turn up the dramatic heat.
Full Review|Dec 24, 2001Hallstrom ... has always been excellent with scenery and ensemble casts, and Shipping News, besides its great Trinity Blight vistas, has another incredible ensemble.
Full Review|Dec 24, 2001...a problematic film redeemed by its steel gray palette and the actorly instincts of its chief players
Full Review|Jan 29, 2005Mr. Spacey and his estimable supporting cast bring skill and commitment to their roles; they respect their characters and demand as much from the audience.
Full Review|Oct 15, 2002It seems there is almost no prized novel that director Lasse Hallstrom couldn't make duller and less purposeful.
Full Review|Jun 21, 2002Nearly everyone we meet has a cute name (Billy Pretty, B.B. Nutbeem, etc.), an extensive backstory and his/her personal set of adorable eccentricities. It's enough to give folksy types a bad name.
Full Review|Jun 9, 2002The story is played as a warm and fuzzy one, a fairy tale where children are revered and one's family roots are sacred.
Full Review|Mar 14, 2002The simple build of comedy and meticulous build of tragedy are missing and so, in effect, is the movie's heart.
Full Review|Feb 26, 2002We gain pleasure from watching the actors, including Judi Dench as Quoyle's starchy aunt and Julianne Moore as his friend and potential lover.
Full Review|Jan 31, 2002The last time I felt this let down was when Bill Buckner let a certain ground ball roll between his legs during the 1986 World Series.
Jan 18, 2002Despite coming from the highly regarded Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Annie Proulx, the film is a generally unappealing drama that feels as icy as its setting -- and one that seems to miss the point of the story.
Full Review|Jan 18, 2002The movie has a modest but true feeling for the ways in which people are formed by the ravages of their natural surroundings.
Full Review|Jan 22, 2002Some novels need to be left alone. Hear that, Hollywood?
Jan 8, 2002Hallstrom and screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs, the team that gave us the spectacularly ordinary Chocolat, have concocted another box of mediocrity.
Dec 28, 2001Despite its haunting artistry and its winning eccentricities, The Shipping News is a vehicle that's still very much at sea.
Dec 25, 2001It's worth seeing at the very least because it is so different from standard Hollywood fare.
Dec 25, 2001Instead of giving you the book, it leaves you with the unfulfilled sense of having leafed through an elegant, studiously captioned photo essay of the same material.
Full Review|Dec 25, 2001The story line's strength and resilience allow the film to rebound from lumpish storytelling and one major miscasting.
Full Review|Dec 24, 2001Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore astound in touching, well-told tale of rebirth and redemption.
Full Review|Nov 7, 2002The ensemble work by the cast helps detract from the narrative's basic aimlessness.
Sep 1, 2002Another beautifully-made and serious-minded celebration of having nothing to say.
Full Review|Jun 21, 2002Queda un sentimiento de insatisfaccion por haber perdido casi dos horas sentado y sin que se nos diga hacia donde van los eventos.
Full Review|May 7, 2002Titular: La vida anodina e insulsa te lleva a lo impredecible.
Mar 10, 2002...leads us from the alien to the comprehensible with a gentle, leisurely hand.
Feb 22, 2002With its sterling literary pedigree, picturesque setting, proven creative team and dream cast, "The Shipping News" ultimately ends up less than the sum of its parts.
Full Review|Jan 21, 2002With The Shipping News, director Lasse Hallstrom reaffirms his talent for exploring emotionally scarred families and dysfunctional relationships.
Full Review|Jan 18, 2002Spacey brilliantly shows Quoyle's transformation from a passive clod to a curious journalist.
Jan 17, 2002Where The Cider House Rules was one of the most exquisite examples of classical Hollywood filmmaking in years, Chocolat was no more than a trite, pleasant trifle. The Shipping News, well made as it is, isn't even up to that standard.
Full Review|Jan 8, 2002[L]ike a string quartet performing a half-beat off, the team behind Chocolat only occasionally captures the story's essential tones of absurd tragedy and comedy.
Full Review|Dec 28, 2001Moves at a glacial pace, much like the icy land it's set in. And even a top-notch cast can't warm up the atmosphere.
Full Review|Dec 25, 2001It's easier to respect than to love a movie almost totally lacking in conventional dramatic conflict, with almost all the characters seeming in dire need of antidepressants.
Dec 25, 2001Hallstrom has fashioned a disjointed movie full of strong performances and some powerful individual scenes.
Full Review|Dec 24, 2001The acting is first-rate, and deeply moving at times. However, it takes the patience of Job to get to the end.
Full Review|Dec 24, 2001With a very able cast on hand to flesh out the finer details ... it makes for an artfully assembled picture.
Dec 21, 2001What has happened to Lasse Hallstrom: This poor adaptation of an interesting novel is not only bland but also poorly acted and shapeless
Full Review|Jan 11, 2007Hallstrom ... has done a spectacular job with this odd story, and has created a memorable, if not perfect film.
Full Review|Oct 21, 2002The book is better----Long awaited screen adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's "Shipping News" fails to transport the goods
Jul 15, 2002Everyone has not only some catastrophe but some mystical experience to communicate until, finally, it all comes crashing down in well-timed, well-executed ennui.
Jun 14, 2002Begins so unsurely that it hardly has a chance at recovery
Mar 17, 2002The Shipping News isn't much of a breaking story, but its byline is hungry enough to be in the right place despite its convoluted convictions.
Full Review|Mar 4, 2002Just as staple foods can sometimes be enjoyable, so this easy-to-digest, gently amusing drama is a pleasant way to fritter away a couple of hours.
Full Review|Feb 17, 2002The Shipping News is brilliant, heartwarming, and divinely sublime as the cast delivers one helluva film!
Full Review|Jan 20, 2002Their performances are strong. But they can't keep the film from plowing through some disappointingly rough waters.
Jan 18, 2002Spacey ... resists the leading-man temptation to make Quoyle inconsequential with a capital 'I.'
Full Review|Jan 17, 2002
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