The Shipping News is a 2001 romantic drama film directed by Lasse Hallström from a screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs, based on the 1993 novel of the same name by E. Annie Proulx. It stars Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Scott Glenn, Rhys Ifans, Pete Postlethwaite, and Cate Blanchett. It follows an emotionally beaten man who moves with his daughter from Upstate New York to his ancestral home in a small Newfoundland fishing village.
The film was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on December 25, 2001, by Miramax Films. It received mixed reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, grossing only $24.6 million worldwide against a $38 million budget. At the 55th British Academy Film Awards, Spacey and Dench were nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role, respectively. The film also received two nominations at the 59th Golden Globe Awards and two nominations at the 7th Critics' Choice Awards, including Best Picture.
Plot
When Quoyle was a young boy, his father, Guy, tossed him into a lake, expecting him to swim naturally. Images of flailing in water and nearly drowning often resurface in Quoyle's memory when he is under stress.
Quoyle, now an ink setter at a small newspaper in Poughkeepsie, New York, lives a lonely life. He becomes infatuated with and marries a vivacious local woman named Petal. Petal is an unfaithful wife and a negligent mother to their six-year-old daughter, Bunny. Petal runs off with a lover, taking Bunny with her. Soon after, Petal and her boyfriend are killed in a car accident. The police return Bunny to Quoyle, informing him that Petal sold her to a black market adoption operation for $6,000.
Shortly before those events, Quoyle's elderly parents die by suicide together. Quoyle's aunt, Agnis Hamm, arrives to pay her respects to her late brother, though her real motive is to steal Guy's ashes (which she later dumps down an outhouse hole and urinates on). Agnis is moving to the ancestral family home in Newfoundland, which has been abandoned for 44 years. Agnis agrees to stay a few more days to help Quoyle through his recent turmoil, then persuades him to move to Newfoundland with her.
While struggling to build a new life, restore the derelict house, and care for Bunny, Quoyle meets Wavey Prowse, a widow whose young son, Harry, has a learning disability. Wavey and Quoyle gradually develop a deepening relationship. Wavey eventually admits she pretends to be widowed, ashamed that her philandering husband left when she was pregnant. Quoyle learns that the ancient Quoyles were pirates that ran ships aground and savagely pillaged them. When those Quoyles were driven out, they moved their house over a frozen lake to its present location, now known as Quoyle's Point. Quoyle's cousin Nolan, an old hermit, reveals that young Agnis was raped and impregnated by her teenaged brother (Quoyle's father), resulting in an abortion.
Quoyle applies for an ink setter job at the Gammy Bird. Owner and publisher, Jack Buggit, instead hires him as a reporter covering auto wrecks and the town's shipping news. With no journalism experience, Quoyle struggles to produce decent articles, incurring managing editor Tert Card's constant scorn. Reporter Billy Pretty tutors and encourages Quoyle. When Quoyle's article about a millionaire's vintage yacht docked in town is popular with readers, Jack assigns him a weekly column profiling an interesting boat in port. Meanwhile, Agnis resumes her former occupation as a boat upholsterer to help support the family. She later confides to Quoyle that the woman she loved died six years earlier from leukemia.
Rather than running his newspaper full time, Jack Buggit commercially fishes to prevent his adult son, Dennis, who nearly died at sea, from obtaining his own commercial license, which are limited. Jack drowns while securing his boat in an oncoming storm. During the funeral wake at the Buggit house, shock and chaos erupts when Jack miraculously revives from a coma-like state caused by hypothermia. Jack gives Dennis his fishing license, believing the generational curse of Buggits dying at sea has been broken. After Jack's revival, Bunny is upset and angry at Quoyle, believing Petal could also have been "awakened," but she finally accepts her mother's death.
Agnis, Quoyle, and Bunny have been living in town during the winter months while their house is renovated. On the night of the big storm, Bunny awakes and can "see" the house at Quoyle's point being blown away. When the family drives to their property, they discover the house is gone, symbolically freeing them from the dark Quoyle legacy.