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Message in a Bottle

803 votes

A woman finds a romantic letter in a bottle washed ashore and tracks down the author, a widowed shipbuilder whose wife died tragically early. As a deep and mutual attraction blossoms, the man struggles to make peace with his past so that he can move on and find happiness.

Status: Released

Released Date: 1999-02-22

Runtime: 131 mins

Director: Luis Mandoki

Spoken language: English

Genres: Romance, Drama

Original title: Message in a Bottle

Production Companies: Warner Bros. Pictures, Bel Air Entertainment, Tig Productions, Di Novi Pictures

Production Countries: United States of America

Cast

Kevin Costner

Robin Wright

Paul Newman

John Savage

Illeana Douglas

Robbie Coltrane

Jesse James

Bethel Leslie

Tom Aldredge

Viveka Davis

Raphael Sbarge

Rosemary Murphy

Steven Eckholdt

Susan Brightbill

Reviews

Wuchak

_**Enjoyable, but contrived, love story with some very puzzling questions**_ While on vacation in the Northeast a researcher for the Chicago Tribune (Robin Wright Penn) finds a romantic message in a bottle that is truly moving. After her editor prints the letter it becomes a hit and she travels to North Carolina to find the man who wrote the message (Keven Costner). Paul Newman is on hand as the latter’s father while John Savage plays his angry brother-in-law. "Message in a Bottle" (1999) is an entertaining drama/romance with quality actors and East Coast locations. Unfortunately, parts of the contrived plot are too much of a stretch and some seriously perplexing questions are raised that I can’t detail without spoiling the movie for first-time viewers. Write me and I’ll share them with you. Thankfully, there’s too much good to write the movie off as worthless. For instance, there’s a well-done subplot that has to do with manly antagonism and reconciliation. The average male has too much machismo to voice sappy apologies, but they clearly apologize & reconcile in less direct ways. Just read between the lines. When Theresa asks Garrett, "Will you come and visit me,'' Roger Ebert complained about the (supposed) lousy writing of the latter’s response: "You mean, inland?'' I guess he failed to notice that Garrett had a smirk on his face and was playing with Theresa wherein she giggled. Some people complain that the film was shot in Maine while the story takes place in The Outer Banks, North Carolina, which looks nothing like Maine and insults the intelligence of the viewer. In the producers’ defense, they tried to shoot in a couple places further south, but couldn’t get permits and so had to settle for Maine (Bath, New Harbor, Phippsburg & Portland). Yet the coastal scenery isn’t much of a focus, so it’s not that big of a deal. If it really bugs you, just imagine that Garrett throws the bottles into the ocean in Maine and Theresa finds the initial message while vacationing in Nova Scotia; problem solved. The film runs 2 hours, 6 minutes, and was shot in Maine and Chicago, plus some stuff done at Falls Lake, Backlot, Universal Studios, Southern Cal. GRADE: C

2020-06-29

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