FILMS MISFIRE

I must admit I found E. Annie Proulx’s
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Shipping News" to
be ersatz John Irving: the way Proulx manipulates her already
eccentric characters by trotting them through various situations
that get even stranger as the book moves along, and especially
how Proulx tries cramming warmth in among the ever more oddball
events and people.

At his best – in "The World According to Garp" and
his new novel, "The Fourth Hand" – Irving manages to
find humanity among the weirdness. Director Lasse Hallstrom did
a wonderful job of making Irving’s aggrandizing novel "The
Cider House Rules" a splendidly adult drama; it doesn’t
seem coincidental that Hallstrom has also helmed the film version
of "The Shipping News," opening Dec. 25 at BAM Rose
Cinemas.

For those unfamiliar with the story, "The Shipping News"
revolves around Quoyle (Kevin Spacey), a no-account loser who
loses his oversexed and unreliable wife Petal (Cate Blanchett)
when she dies in a car accident with her latest beau. Left alone
with his young daughter Bunny (played variously by triplets Alyssa,
Kaitlyn and Lauren Gainer), Quoyle is befriended by Aunt Agnes
(Judi Densch), with whom father and daughter return to the Quoyle
homeland – Newfoundland.

Once there, Quoyle deals with various offbeat (but oh so lovable!)
denizens of the frozen tundra, finds a job as a reporter for
the local paper – hence the movie’s title – and, best of all,
forges a relationship with Wavey Prowse (Julianne Moore), herself
left alone with young son Herry (Will McAllister).

And so it goes for two hours. If you haven’t read the novel,
you may find it difficult to keep track of what’s going on; Hallstrom
gamely introduces many flashbacks and fantasy sequences into
a narrative that relies a great deal on a protagonist who finally
outruns his often turbulent family history.

In the end, it doesn’t add up to much. Hallstrom, who has become
Miramax’s dependable holiday director (in ’99 it was "Cider
House"; last year, "Chocolat") paces the sharply-photographed
movie well enough, and almost finds a heart beating underneath
all the willful eccentricity, but he never manages to make us
care about what happens to his hero.

Of course, he’s fighting Proulx’s book, which has been adapted
by Robert Nelson Jacobs in a numbingly literal-minded fashion.
Several flashbacks are predictable but unnecessary; at one point,
we hear about a long-ago incestuous rape from someone who enters
the movie just to tell Quoyle about it: and Hallstrom faithfully
shows it!

Blanchett is too showy as the manipulative Petal, but Densch
is wonderfully authentic as Aunt Agnes, Moore is exactly right
as the hard-bitten Wavey, and the Gainer girls are seamlessly
excellent as Bunny. Such solid character actors as Pete Postlethwaite,
Scott Glenn and Rhys Ifans sketch their smaller roles beautifully.

In the pivotal role of Quoyle, Spacey shows off a subtlety he
hasn’t displayed lately. Playing a man seemingly sick of life
and accepting the role of "lumbering idiot" (his own
words), Spacey does it almost entirely with his voice, sounding
perpetually tired, laryngitic at times, to expressively convey
this man’s world-weariness.

Since it was first shown to reviewers, "The Shipping News"
has been trimmed of some five minutes by Hallstrom, who has also
added narration to clarify certain narrative matters. Even so,
the fundamental problems that underlie "The Shipping News"
remain.

Almost perfect

So much is estimable about actor Todd Field’s directorial debut
"In the Bedroom," also opening Christmas Day at the
BAM Rose Cinemas, that it is almost Scrooge-like to admit to
its ultimate disappointment.

The movie – adapted by Field and Robert Festinger from Andre
Dubas’ short story "Killings" – recounts how Ruth Fowler
(Sissy Spacek) and her husband, Matt (Tom Wilkinson) react to
the unexpected death of their only son, Frank (Nick Stahl).

In its closely observed study of how a family unit can break
down following such unspeakable calamity, "In the Bedroom"
obviously resonates in these troubled times. But a closer examination
finds that Field gropes for a way to explore emotions and relationships
that seem out of his, well, field.

Many scenes make their lone point and fade to black. It’s as
if Field checked off what he wanted in the movie, and simply
went down the list: dad breaks down, check; stoic mom watches
late-night TV and dad joins her without speaking, check; the
parents finally explode in a heated blame-filled argument, check.

That "In the Bedroom" still generates occasional power
is due to its tremendous acting. There’s not a false note in
the performances of Wilkinson and Spacek: their faces must speak
volumes since they don’t say much post-funeral, and they enact
this couple’s life-altering tragedy with unbearably wrenching
truth and artistry.

Stahl makes Frank a fully rounded character in his brief onscreen
time, while Marisa Tomei is spectacularly good as Natalie, the
divorcee whose romance with Frank contributes to his death. That
Field is himself a very fine actor ("Ruby in Paradise,"
"Eyes Wide Shut") is unsurprising after seeing the
quality of acting in his first feature.

Would that Field had sufficient directorial finesse to make the
reality he sketches in "In the Bedroom" come to truly
devastating life. Let’s hope he grows into the accomplished filmmaker
this admirable first effort shows him capable of.