'The Light Between Oceans' A Review

The Light Between Oceans is a period drama about a British WWI veteran, Tom(Michael Fassbender), who takes a job as a lighthouse keeper in Australia and falls in love with a local woman Isabel(Alicia Vikander). The two have a happy isolated life but after Isabel has two miscarriages a baby washes up in a boat with a dead man and the two begin to raise her as their own. Tom is wracked with guilt by the decision and the two have to contend with their choice after they discover the widow of the child in town.

The cast is filled with incredible actors and they all give serviceable performances but are prevented from soaring by the predictable melodramatic plotting. Weisz as Hannah the biological mother of the foundling especially suffers from illogical emotional hoops she is required to jump through. A real waste for such a dynamic talent. Vikander and Fassbender have magnetic chemistry and give such transportive turns(as they always do) it makes you wish the film was simply their lives at the lighthouse devoid of artificial action. The first third of the film is wonderful.

Visually the film is stunning, with rich landscapes and vivid imagery. The orchestral score evokes the period and the beauty of the alien coastal crags. But all the meticulous production fail to elevate the forced machinations of the narrative.

Adapted from a novel of the same name it seems too much attention was paid to maintaining the integrity of the story without creative license being taken with the transition to screen. The film reflects the sprawling nature of the novel and is worse for it. Character motivations which can be given depth in text are rushed and feel artificial and sometimes pointless.

Beautiful cinematography and amazing actors fail to bring to life the critically lauded melodrama.

Don't See It.