The Light Between Oceans, 2016.
Directed by Derek Cianfrance.
Starring Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz and Bryan Brown.
SYNOPSIS:
After the end of World War I, former soldier Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender) takes the solitary job of lighthouse keeper off the coast of Western Australia. On the mainland, he meets the vivacious Isobel Graymark (Alicia Vikander), they fall in love and marry. Their happiness is blighted by their inability to have a baby and, after a second miscarriage, what seems to be a small miracle happens. A boat arrives on their island, carrying a dead man and a baby girl. The child is alive and Isobel is desperate for them to keep her as their own. Tom reluctantly agrees, but the decision changes their lives forever.
Derek Cianfrance is back on familiar territory for The Light Between Oceans. In Blue Valentine (2010), he charted the development and eventual disintegration of a modern relationship. Now he takes one from around 100 years ago, at a time when the characters were still coming to terms of the effects of the First World War, and puts that under the microscope. The results are markedly different and much more romantic.
The story is solid enough, laden with religious overtones and high emotion, and ripe for transition to the big screen, yet the film is something of a disappointment, especially given its leads. Much of the problem lies with Cianfrance, who also adapted M L Stedman’s book and falls into the trap of over-explaining everything. Film has the wonderful ability to speak volumes in a single shot or in just a few words of dialogue, but Cianfrance has decided not to use one shot when a dozen will do. Which makes for an over-long film and an occasionally restive audience, which feels its intelligence is being under-estimated.
The performances from its leads are variable. Fassbender delivers as the quiet lighthouse keeper, with his wartime experiences buried so deep he never speaks about them. A man of duty, he won’t break the rules, but his love for his wife and desire for her happiness means he’ll do anything. And it leads him to make the worse decision of his life. Vikander is more problematic. Here she needs to do snotty crying and lots of emotion and we know she can do it, because we saw it in The Danish Girl. But here, there’s an inkling that she knows she has to reproduce that style of acting again, which she does, but it’s not as convincing as her Oscar winning role.
This, however, is not a two-handed film. And it’s the third main character who steals it. Rachel Weisz is excellent as the little girl’s real mother, struggling to come to terms with losing her husband and child and then discovering that her baby is still alive. And the prospect of having her child returned is almost as bad as having lost her because they’re strangers to each other. It’s a judgement of Solomon dilemma and her character has to dig deep to find the strength to handle it. But even she falls victim to Cianfrance’s over-thinking: we don’t need all those flashbacks to her life with her late husband.
While it’s a personal, often intimate story, the film has an epic sweep, underlined by Aussie cinematographer Adam Arkapaw’s seascapes and sunsets and the soundtrack from Alexandre Desplat. However, he seems to be channeling his inner Maurice Jarre. Listen to the opening music and you’ll hear strains of Doctor Zhivago, I promise you!
In many ways, The Light Between Oceans is what it set out to be – an emotional drama about love, forgiveness and redemption. But its power is lost by Cianfrance’s overly explicit approach, one that allows the dramatic potential to seep away – and leaving the audience wishing that he’d just get on with it.
SEE ALSO: Listen to the London press conference for The Light Between Oceans here
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Freda Cooper – Follow me on Twitter, check out my movie blog and listen to my podcast, Talking Pictures.
Originally published October 24, 2016. Updated November 30, 2022.
