Message in a Bottle (film)

Message in a Bottle
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Luis Mandoki
Produced by	Kevin Costner Denise Di Novi Jim Wilson
Screenplay by	Gerald Di Pego
Based on	Novel: Nicholas Sparks
Starring	Kevin Costner Robin Wright Penn Paul Newman
Music by	Gabriel Yared
Cinematography	Caleb Deschanel
Editing by	Steven Weisberg
Studio	Tig Productions Di Novi Pictures Bel Air Entertainment
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	February 12, 1999
Running time	131 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$80 million
Box office	$118,880,016

Message in a Bottle is a 1999 American romantic drama film directed by Luis Mandoki. Based on a novel with the same name by Nicholas Sparks, the film stars Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn, and Paul Newman. Message in a Bottle was filmed in Maine, Chicago, and Wilmington, North Carolina in the United States.

Plot

Theresa Osborne works for The Chicago Tribune as a researcher (she is a former reporter). On a trip to Cape Cod, she finds a mysterious, intriguing love letter in a bottle in the sand, addressed from Garret to Catherine. She is fascinated by it and comes into possession of two more letters by the same person, eventually tracking down the man who wrote them, Garret Blake. He has refurbished a boat called Happenstence with his wife before her death and he lives quietly on the outer banks of North Carolina with his father, Dodge.

Theresa and Garret become better acquainted, but she does not reveal her knowledge of the love letters. Along with the literal distance between them — they live hundreds of miles apart—there is another problem: Garret cannot quite forgive Catherine for dying and leaving him.

Theresa's career flourishes as the romantic tale of the "messages in a bottle" is told in print, without naming names. Garret makes a trip to Chicago to visit Theresa and her young son. Their new love grows, until one day Garret finds his letters in a drawer in Theresa's apartment. Garret angrily goes home by himself.

A year later, Dodge tracks down Theresa. He informs her that his son Garret has died at sea in a storm while attempting to rescue someone else. A bottle with a message inside was found on his boat. Theresa realizes that it was written a night before Garrett's last sailing. In it, he apologizes to Catherine and says that in Theresa he has found a new love, a love he must fight for.

Production

The producers originally planned to film on Tangier Island, Virginia, but some members of the town council objected to the drinking, cursing and sex in the movie and demanded script revisions in exchange for shooting permission. Warner Bros. then tried Martha's Vineyard near Chilmark, Massachusetts, but the Chilmark Conservation Commission turned down a request to build a temporary 3,000-square-foot (280 m²) house on stilts in the dunes near Chilmark Pond.^{[citation needed]}

Although the Chicago Tribune gave permission for its name and image to be used, the actual newspaper office where Theresa works, according to the film's official Web site, was built inside a Los Angeles warehouse.^{[citation needed]}

Cast

• Kevin Costner - Garret Blake
• Robin Wright Penn - Theresa Osborne
• Paul Newman - Dodge Blake
• Susan Brightbill - Catherine Land Blake
• John Savage - Johnny Land
• Illeana Douglas - Lina Paul
• Robbie Coltrane - Charlie Toschi
• Jesse James - Jason Osborne
• Bethel Leslie - Marta Land
• Tom Aldredge - Hank Land
• Hayden Panettiere - girl on a sinking boat
• SY Irian, SY Arapaho - Concordia yawls

Reception

Critical response

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 31% based on 35 reviews. Costner's performance in the film earned him a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actor (also for For Love of the Game).

Box office

Message in a Bottle opened at #1 the Valentine Day's weekend of 1999 with an estimated $16.7 million. It grossed $52.8 million domestically with an additional $66 million overseas to a total of $118.8 million worldwide

Music

Irish music group Clannad wrote the song "What Will I Do" for the movie. Singer Richard Marx also composed the song "One More Time", sung by Laura Pausini, that played during the credits.

External links

• Message in a Bottle
• Message in a Bottle at the Internet Movie Database
• Message in a Bottle at AllRovi
• Message in a Bottle at Rotten Tomatoes