[yasr_overall_rating]
A lighthouse keeper and his wife living off the coast of Western Australia raise a baby they rescue from an adrift rowboat.
If there were an award for most beautiful cry-face, Alicia Vikander would without a doubt win. It seems in every film I’ve seen her in, her eyes are in a constant misted state, always on the verge of over-flowing, carrying the weight of constant pain and exhaustion. She exudes the exquisite beauty of a woman ready to detonate. Her innocence and pain pairs well with Michael Fassbender’s agonizing stoicism in Derek Cianfrance’s “The Light Between Oceans” (adapted from the novel by M.L. Stedman). My familiarity with Cianfrance’s work is limited to “Blue Valentine,” a different type of romance and devastation. The ability to draw upon emotions unspoken, the emotions that seethe through silence and bubble under the skin, emotions daring to claw through like an unrelenting dog ready to rip through the jugular, is a near perfected skill of Cianfrance. “The Light Between Oceans,” is somber and slow, as it attempts to balance themes of the human condition.
Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender) is a World War I veteran looking for isolation. The weight of his actions during the war leave him heavy with guilt, as if the heft of the dead are like a boulder upon his shoulders. His stoicism keeps him upright though the disquiet is marked on his face. He finds such an opportunity for isolation as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, an island void of interactions of any human kind. While it is recommended for a man to have a wife and family (to help prevent madness) take on the position, Tom adapts well. The gift of isolation provides him with clarity of mind and a purging of the soul. His isolation comes to an end when Isabel (Alicia Vikander), with her sad innocence and charm, inserts herself into his life.
The romance between Tom and Isabel is subtle but intoxicatingly present. The sweetness of it makes the events to come all the more bitter. Devastation comes in miscarriages and secrets. After having two miscarriages, Isabel is a woman battered, ravaged by her need for a child. When a row boat is discovered with a child and a dead man (the child’s father) Isabel begs to keep the child as her own, despite her husband’s insistence on reporting the discovery. Knowing his wife is on the verge of unraveling, he agrees to take the child in as their own. Awkward bliss ensues for a few years before Tom discovers the child’s biological mother, Hannah (Rachel Weisz). Guilt consumes him as he is torn between his wife’s happiness and trying to repent for the sin of keeping what isn’t his to keep.
“The Light Between Oceans,” is as devastating as it is captivating with its natural beauty. The ocean and the life it carries, both within its depths and haphazardly upon its surface, is a constant force, a bringer of life and death. The beauty of the film is its strength. While the story is sure to move you in some capacity, it tends drag on and at some point feels cheapened by the melodrama.
In theaters Friday, September 2nd
