Lasse Hallstrom has both a gift and a curse in his ability to adapt complex stories from literature into accessible films.

The gift: Hallstrom takes characters with rich internal lives on the page and makes them alluring on screen for masses of moviegoers, many who have not or would not read the source novels.

The curse: Hallstrom bleeds away too much of the real human conflict and tension in the characters and stories, leaving bowdlerized reflections of the originals that satisfy without satiating.

The Shipping News, based on E. Annie Proulx's beloved novel, is Hallstrom's third such literary adaptation.

The Cider House Rules was the strongest of the three, faithful in spirit to the novel while glossing over its harder edges, especially its abortion elements. Last year's Chocolat was the weakest, a pleasant-enough concoction that nevertheless diminished the book's dialectic on morality to a contest between sugar and Nutrasweet.

Berthed between them is The Shipping News, reduced to a two-dimensional essence of the novel while still delivering a fairly pleasing film.

Kevin Spacey stars as Quoyle, a taciturn loser sitting around passively for whatever kicks in the head life might deliver. A clever morphing montage at the film's opening introduces Quoyle from boyhood to fully grown chump, meandering through his adult years in a succession of mind-numbing jobs.

After the demise of his cheating harlot of a wife, Petal Bear (Cate Blanchett), Quoyle, his newfound aunt Agnis (Judi Dench), and his daughter, Bunny (played by triplets Alyssa, Kaitlyn and Lauren Gainer) head out to make a fresh start in Newfoundland, their ancestral homeland.

There, Quoyle takes up newspapering, becoming the car wreck and shipping news reporter for the local rag, the Gammy Bird. Dark secrets from the Quoyle family history and a budding romance with Wavey Prowse (Julianne Moore) — a single mom with mysteries of her own — nudge Quoyle toward a more proactive life, even happiness.

The movie takes some liberties with the novel, notably eliminating Quoyle's second daughter and substituting the medium-build Spacey for the fleshy, doughy Quoyle.

Best known for playing glib talkers, Spacey shows refreshing restraint, occasionally speaking as eloquently, with just a mournful glance, as any of his past characters.

With understated performances, Spacey and Moore capture some of the novel's sense of repressed longing. Yet much is lost in Hallstrom's oversimplified interpretation, which too often replaces subtlety with punch lines to impart a sunnier mood.

Dench is a stolid presence as the hardy aunt concealing an old wound, while Blanchett is a whirlwind of cruel seduction and defection in her brief screen time.

Scott Glenn, Pete Postlethwaite, Rhys Ifans, Gordon Pinsent and Jason Behr make for an engaging gaggle of locals.

Shot in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, The Shipping News features rugged landscapes gorgeously filmed. The Canadian Celtic-influenced score by Christopher Young nicely complements the desolate scenery.

Hallstrom made some last-minute cuts and alterations, adding brief opening and closing narration by Spacey and trimming about five minutes from the film. The narration adds a little insight into Quoyle at the opening, but the closing speech is cloying and pointless.

The cuts were mainly cosmetic and unnoticeable except for one inexplicably ejected scene in which Quoyle and Wavey fumble at an embrace early on. The scene was touching, and its absence leaves not only a lapse in coherence during an exchange moments later, but also a clumsy, mildly jarring transition.

Thanks to Mike Kennedy for sending me this article which appeared on The Star (Toronto) Website on December 21, 2001.

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