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Grade: B

Verdict: Chilly but good.

Details: Starring Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench, Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett. Directed by Lasse Hallström. Rated R for language, sexuality and disturbing images. One hour, 58 minutes.

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Review: The good news about “The Shipping News” is that it stars Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench, Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett. The bad news is that it's directed by Lasse Hallström, whose career has been hit and miss ever since his breakthrough film, “My Life as a Dog.”

Fortunately, “The Shipping News” is more hit than miss.

Adapted from E. Annie Proulx's complex and sobering Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, it begins with a dead man walking. He's Quoyle (Spacey), and, like Billy Bob Thornton, he's the man who wasn't there. Thanks to a disastrous father, Quoyle has grown up afraid of water and afraid of life.

He's leading a life of quiet desperation when he meets Petal (Blanchett), whose life is anything but quiet — lying, cheating, adultery, whatever.

When things don't work out between them, Quoyle and his young daughter are left adrift . . . until another strong-willed woman enters his life. She's Aunt Agnis (Dench), and she persuades him to return with her to the Quoyle ancestral home — a windblown house on a frigid coastal cliff in Newfoundland.

The place is as good as its name. For Quoyle, it truly is a newfound land with the promise — if he can work up the nerve — of a newfound life. On the minus side, there's Quoyle's tainted family history. On the plus, there's a potential future with Wavey (Moore), a wary young widow with a small child.

Those who've read the book (I haven't) have said it's been softened, something Hallström is apt to do. For the rest of us, “The Shipping News” is plenty somber. There's every imaginable personal pain on display here. Name a character and you'll probably find an open wound.

But remember: This is a story of redemption. By the end, all's not well with the world — but all's not lost.

The sea, by the way, plays as big a part in the story as any of the characters. Hallström or Proulx or both understand the mysterious lure of the sea. Its danger and wonder. Its beauty and its secrets.

There's a deliberate chill pervading this movie, but there's also an underlying sense of hope. This is a portrait done in minor colors, a story of family and community and the whole darn thing. It's not exactly the feel-good movie of the year, but it certainly makes you feel, which is more than you can say for a lot of movies today.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution