60
Has a quiet sense of community, a wry, unsentimental sweetness, that grows on you. It's a patient movie for impatient times.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
Doesn't really work but has a good cast and great craggy ocean-framed scenery.
40
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
Kevin Spacey's pinched portrayal of Quoyle as a scared palooka rarely transcends its own artifice.
30
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
It's a portrayal so unconvincing it makes it close to impossible for the rest of the film to function as intended.
50
This morbid and self-consciously literary adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's Pulitzer-winning novel is no crowd pleaser.
50
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
Everything has a fusty, embalmed quality: Whatever gave the novel its vitality has been smothered.
50
Baltimore Sun by Michael Sragow
Hasn't got quite the right sound as it did in Annie Proulx's novel.
42
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
A limp and sodden downer.
50
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
But, lord, the characters are tireless in their peculiarities; it's as if the movie took the most colorful folks in Lake Wobegon, dehydrated them, concentrated the granules, shipped them to Newfoundland, reconstituted them with Molson's and issued them Canadian passports.
63
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
Despite its haunting artistry and its winning eccentricities, The Shipping News is a vehicle that's still very much at sea.