Message in a Bottle (1999) Reviews

• "Choose between yesterday and tomorrow. Pick one. Stick with it."

  Nazi_Fighter_David2008-06-08

  While on vacation, a single mother identified as Theresa discovers a 'message in a bottle' on the shore that has moving honest words of love addressed to a woman named Catherine… The trail leads her to a sailboat builder named Garrett and also to his father, Dodge in a small North Carolina coastal town… It turns out that Catherine is Garret's deceased wife, and the intriguing letters were written, two years earlier, after her decease… Some people find the one true love of their lives, if they're fortunate enough… Luis Mandoki's film, in part, turns out to be a choice about what occurs when a person finds that right kind of love, then when he is faced with the impossible, and then when he is given the right to continue with his life and is brave enough to love again no matter how unpleasant his grief is… As a reclusive widower, Garret was still in deep pain, and entirely devoted to Catherine's memory… He had hard time letting go of the past… Catherine was dead but not forgotten and was simply everywhere… As a sailor Costner didn't inherit the charm of Newman… He was drawn to Penn by her smile, her beauty, even her mistakes… Robin Wright Penn was beautiful, delicate and sweet as Theresa… She soon insinuates her way into Garret's life… Her expectations were always too high… Since the beginning, she just had to meet the person that wrote those letters… Her life was changed by them… Eventually when she met Garret that morning, she accepted, without hesitation, to step aboard… Paul Newman as Dodge liked Theresa instantly… He saw in her the key to his son's emotional recovery… With a very nice music, and a stunning coastal photography—also the ocean scenes are wonderfully taken—"Message in a Bottle" is definitely a weepy melodrama and a must see for those who believe, or don't, in love…

• 9 out of 10... Loved it!

  melloheart2005-04-08

  I really enjoyed the peacefulness of the surroundings. The beautiful foggy mornings near the ocean is an all natural calmer. Just overall a wonderful movie. Very moving. Each of us Have loved or will have loved so deeply as to make our very souls leap into unfathomable joy. This movie grabs hold of the heart of the viewer and keeps you intrigued from the beginning to the end. It engages the inner self to want to reach out, take hold of life and love with the clarity to which we all want to be loved. It reminds us when you love, let it be always unconditional. Let it be forever. A well written movie. One, every person should take time to see.

• Kevin Costner....

  hershykissed262004-06-27

  I can't help but love this movie. When watching this movie, I felt as if I was right inside with the people and it was real life. All the emotions that Kevin's character goes through shows this sensitive side of him that is not always shown in his movies. I cried for his loss and cheered him on in finding another person to understand and love him for who he is. The depth of this film made me want to be in love and to share that experience with someone.

• Allow yourself to enjoy the pace of the ocean in this romance.

  steinj1999-02-14

  The pace is set from the opening scene: the ocean with its consistent but gentle force splashing against the shore. `Message in a Bottle' follows this leisurely pace; it is not in a real hurry to give up all its secrets, but like the ocean, will surrender all in good time. So relax, and allow yourself to enjoy! Paul Newman (Dodge Blake) and Kevin Costner (Garrett Blake) both deliver strong performances as father and son, initially content, though not really happy in their current existence. Both have lost their love, for one reason or another, and are each other's companion and support. Newman gets the fun punch lines, Costner gets the woman. `If I were about 150 years younger' starts one of Newman's lines – it must be different for him not to play the leading role. Costner seems right at home playing a ship-building sailor who is lost because of his lost love. Robin Wright (Theresa Osborne) is equally strong, playing an independent and patient reporter, who follows her heart, and decides to find the author of the love letters from the ocean. She gives Garrett distance gently when he needs it, yet pushes back equally hard when she needs to. Much of the acting relied not so much on the delivery of lines, as on the body language, on looks, on the strained silence between a couple who is unsure of each other, often unsure of themselves, yet strongly attracted to each other. Both Garrett and Theresa seem to struggle at conversation, both uncertain of how to discover each other, yet each finding an attraction they can't seem to deny. Garrett is hanging on to the love he still feels for his wife, who died too early. Theresa is still recovering from a divorce, and the busy life of a single parent. Neither is sure they can be open to a new relationship, nor are they ready to say goodbye to something that is starting to feel so right. The photography of the sailboats on the ocean were enough to bring out the romantic in me. What could be a more peaceful setting than a sailboat anchored privately in a small cove of the ocean in the Outer Banks?. We're given just enough peek into the unfolding world of a couple discovering love, without it feeling like an intrusion. To talk more of the ups and downs would give away too many of the secrets that only the theatre, the bookstore, or the ocean will release.

• Treasure

  flakcfan2002-08-17

  This is the movie that proves that most critics don't know what they're doing. The critics shed their sentimentalism sometime in the mid-1960's, so how could they know or care? One must have a heart to enjoy "Message in a Bottle". It's a treasure--beautiful, poignant, tragic. The cast is wonderful, and if you don't cry at the ending, you aren't human (which most critics apparently aren't).