The Light Between Oceans

Year: 2016
Genre: Drama
Directed: Derek Cianfrance
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz, Florence Clery, Jack Thompson, Thomas Unger, Jane Menelaus, Leon Ford, Anthony Hayes, Benedict Hardie, Emily Barclay, Bryan Brown
Production: DreamWorks SKG

Alfred Hitchcock once said, "film is life with the boring bits cut out." If that be the case, director Derek Cianfrance seems to be making a career putting all the boring bits back in. At least unlike the dour, navel-gazing Place Beyond the Pines (2012), The Light Between Oceans sees Cianfrance fit to festoon his pensive yet rudimentary directing sights on a remarkably old-fashioned melodrama; the kind that involves a lot of sobbing, stares into the middle-distance and people wearing old-timey clothing.

The Light Between Oceans takes place largely on an isolated island off the coast of Australia where WWI veteran Tom Sherbourne (Fassbender), has taken a job as a lighthouse keeper. Known to be the stoic but sensitive type, Tom catches the eye of the young Isabel Graysmark (Vikander) whose affluent family owns half the nearby town. Their courtship is one of saccharine kitsch to be sure, but I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't smiling as they eventually get married and carve out their own little corner of the sky on the appropriately named Janus Island.

Someone's trying a bit too hard...

Of course if you're to credit anyone for making such sweetness easy to swallow it'd be the combined talents of Fassbender and Vikander, who flaunt their abilities like two Michelin approved chefs whipping something up for a cousin's wedding. They sell the period detail, they sell the merits of their solitude, they sell the rapture of their blossoming love; heck they almost sell the story, which by the second act, works against them like a gale against a wafting paddle boat.

The film takes its time, but eventually ebbs into a lively littoral zone of story possibilities with the arrival of Lucy (Clery). Adrift on a small boat with her dead father (Ford), the infant Lucy is raised by the young couple who have been struggling to have children of their own. As one would expect, the couple find out a little more than they'd like about Lucy's past and the rest of the movie builds itself on a series of moral choices that risk destroying their reputations, their marriage and their love.

Cianfrance certainly has a knack for ferreting out stories about the cross-generational ripple effect of one or two bad decisions. Combined with his striking command of film grammar from a purely visual perspective, Light Between Oceans begs to be compared to something like Atonement (2007). Yet the editing of Cianfrance's films always seem to eventually stumble into a consistent stream of "then this happens, then this happens, then this..." which is the antithesis of good storytelling. The last half-hour of the film drags on for so long that it compares unfavorably to Return of the King (2003).

Um, symbolism can come in many shapes and sizes...

The Light Between Oceans starts deep and effecting, but eventually erodes your patience like ever punishing sea surf. The film was originally a novel written by M.L. Stedman and by all accounts it seems to want to stay that way. There are a lot of extreme closeups of actors looking pensive and contemplative, as if stuck in an inner monologue we can't hear. Tom and Isabel narrate each other's letters like the belles and beaus of a Civil War documentary. Finally there's the lighthouse itself whose symbolism towers over the film like a cigar at a Sigmund Freud symposium. Yet in the film, everything feels shallow, frivolous and hokey; relying far too much on its leads to tearfully make this film worth something.

Final Grade: C-