The Shipping News - a question

M

Merkel

New member
What the bloody hell went wrong?

How can you have a film that's based on a Pulitzer prize winning novel starring talents like Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench and Pete Postlethwaite and it be so, SO bad...

The acting, the plot, even the animals were bad - how the hell can that happen???
 
In answer to your question Kevin Spacey simply can't play sad sack characters.

The reason Keyser Soze worked was because it was all an act.

Spacey is just too urbane to play a loser for real.
 
I respect the fact that everyone has an opinion but I feel yours in wrong.

American Beauty is an originally beautiful film.

Spacey is a sensational character actor - he's made a name for himself playing "sad sack characters"... Lester Burnham, Verbal Kint, Eugene Simonett, David Gale, Quoyle, etc... I have disliked a couple of Spacey's films and questioned his decision to make them, but you simply cannot question the guy's performances. The man is one of the finest actors in the world.

To say that Spacey is incapable of playing a "sad, sack character" is mental.
 
I don't dispute that.

Spacey excels at playing urbane characters like Jack Vincennes in LA Confidential or the movie exec in Swimming With Sharks.

He just comes unstuck when he plays everyman characters.

Keyser Soze is brilliant because behind the facade the mind is ticking away.

When he plays dullarRAB like the bloke in The Shipping News it's a waste of his talents.

It's like hiring a Formula 1 race car to do the weekly shop.
 
But by saying that you're implying that he should just stick to the same sort of character over and over again. What actor of any calibre would want to do that? Kevin Spacey of all actors appears to be someone who likes to try to stretch his abilities. I find him quite convincing in The Shipping News, well certainly in the beginning, although the jump from 'the broken man' to the more confident man in the film itself is somewhat different to the book. That must partly be down to the scriptwriters/directors etc not the actors themselves. I guess by calling the character Quoyle a "dullard" you haven't read the book then?
 
I agree. It's one of those films which seems to be based on a different plot to the book. The book was pretty earthy wehreas the film wasn't really from what I recall.
 
Thanks for putting me straight on that one.

Of course the fact that Kevin Spacey has reverted to sardonic type in films like Superman Returns & 21 suggests that even he now admits he made some less than successful career choices.
 
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