ANOTHER person doing a Hollywood "acting" performance is Kevin Spacey in the film adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's best-seller The Shipping News.
He plays the central character Quoyle who, following a family tragedy, decides to settle in Newfoundland.
Director Lasse Hallstrom has made a speciality of book adaptations and while the script has come from Robert Nelson Jacobs, Hallstrom nevertheless makes a pretty good fist of it.
He is much helped by the intriguing landscape of Newfoundland itself and a stellar cast of top film players.
Among them we have Julianne Moore as the single mother with whom Spacey develops a relationship and Dame Judi Dench doing her usual scene-stealing.
Emotionally it packs quite a powerful punch and the movie always looks good.
If it sometimes has a worthy feel to it rather than a relaxed honest one, that's often the result of a literary adaptation.
Spacey, anyway, proves that he is one of the more interesting actors in Hollywood today.
