# Message in a Bottle (1999)

### reviewed by
Scott Renshaw

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE (Warner Bros.) Starring: Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn, Paul Newman, Illeana Douglas. Screenplay: Gerald DiPego, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. Producers: Denise Di Novi, Jim Wilson and Kevin Costner. Director: Luis Mandoki. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (adult themes, sexual situations, profanity) Running Time: 135 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

Twenty-five years ago, Paul Newman would have played Garret Blake, the grieving, laconic hero of Nicholas Sparks' best-selling novel MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE. He would have brought the ideal combination of elements to the role of a shipbuilder whose sea-borne messages to his dead wife are found by Chicago newspaper researcher Theresa Osborne (Robin Wright Penn), compelling her to seek out the author of the sensitive missives. You can imagine Newman both as a man's man -- a loner dedicated to his craft -- and a ladies' man -- deeply sensitive when touched by the love of a good woman. That's the kind of screen presence you need when you're dealing with one of these mythically appealing romances like THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY or THE HORSE WHISPERER. You need a Clint Eastwood, or a Robert Redford...or a Paul Newman.

In 1998, you get Paul Newman playing Garret's father Dodge, and as Garret you get...Kevin Costner. Costner has always been at his best in roles where her could be easygoing (SILVERADO, BULL DURHAM, TIN CUP), while his attempts at playing icons (THE UNTOUCHABLES, WATERWORLD, THE POSTMAN) could be most charitably described as uneven. Yet here he is in MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, playing the emotionally unavailable but romantically irresistable Garret. He's the kind of guy who loves too deeply, whose gestures of self-sacrifice are the stuff of song and story. It's Costner once again as the paradigm, the icon, and I for one didn't believe him for a second.

To be fair, Costner isn't the only thing wrong with MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE. Director Luis Mandoki's adaptation is a technically glorious piece of work -- beautifully photographed by Caleb Deschanel, sweepingly scored by Gabriel Yared -- but it's one heck of a long sit, clocking in at a soggy two hours and fifteen minutes. The storyline parallels Theresa's emergence from emotional isolation after a difficult divorce with Garret's difficulties letting go of his wife, and does so in fetishistic detail. There's a subplot involving Garret's conflict with his embittered in-laws, and the occasional tete-a-tete between Dodge and Garret or between Dodge and Theresa, all building with a gruelling lack of tension to one big cathartic payoff. You may leave the theater with your hanky wet, but it could be from the drool that collects while you nod off to sleep just as easily as from tears.

Lost at sea along the way are extremely effective performances by Robin Wright Penn and Paul Newman. Wright Penn is an actress we don't see very much, which allows her still to be an actress in a role like this rather than a movie star. Her conflicted pursuit of Garret -- a man whose letters should have told her from the start isn't ready to love anyone else -- is convincing in context; her moments of insecurity and disappointment are genuinely affecting. Newman, meanwhile, gets to be gruff in a way that usually turns actors into hams, but turns this veteran into a breath of fresh air. He's so effortlessly charming, it's easy to forget the Harlequin sensibility at the heart of MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE and begin enjoying it as human relationship drama.

Costner, too, can be effortlessly charming, but not here. His interpretation of the role is so focused on Garret's internalized mourning that in the moments when he's supposed to be letting go with Theresa, he looks like a man trying to act like a grieving man trying to be effortlessly charming. If that reads awkwardly, it plays even more awkwardly, with Costner straining for Meaning and Significance in every scene while his leading lady acts circles around him. MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE undoubtedly will have its sob appeal, just as the novel did. Unlike the film adaptations of THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY and THE HORSE WHISPERER, that's the main thing this one has going for it. It's too bad it couldn't have been made twenty-five years ago, when Paul Newman hadn't yet handed over the iconic roles to actors ill-suited to handling them.

         On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 empty bottles:  5.

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