The lushly beautiful THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS is a three-hankie historic drama set on the coast of Western Australia. With heart-tugging performances by an attractive trio of Oscar nominees (with two winners), Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weisz, the film is an adaptation of M. I. Stedman’s 2012 bestseller of the same name. The tale set in a remote corner of the world, in the years after the devastation of World War I, which nearly wiped out a generation of young men in Europe and left those who survived scarred by this most brutal of wars.
Derek Cianfrance, whose previous films include BLUE VALENTINE and THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, both wrote the script and directs, and it is hard to imagine a more perfect director for this moody historic tale of moral choice. The title refers to the story’s setting, a remote lighthouse in Western Australia, at the point where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. With its talented cast, evocative photography by Adam Arkapaw, and a moving score by Alexandre Desplat, the romantic stage is set.
Tom Sherbourne (Fassbender) is a shell-shocked veteran and a man with no living family, who seeks solitude and the solace that brings, by taking a job as a lighthouse keeper on remote, uninhabited Janus Rock. While waiting to take his new post, he unexpectedly meets a beautiful young woman, Isabel Graysmark (Vikander), the daughter of the couple he is boarding with,Violet and Bill
Graysmark (veteran Australian actors Jane Menelaus and Garry McDonald) in the tiny port town nearest to Janus Rock. Isabel has lost two brothers in the war, who she still mourns, so Tom’s war experience draws her attention. Her parents note that available young men have become scarce in their little village since the war, and handsome ones like Tom Sherbourne rarer still. Reserved Tom is overwhelmed by the attention of lively, inquisitive Isabel, who awakens unsought feelings, and he proceeds cautiously and slowly. Their shared love of language and poetry creates a link between them. After a few months of exchanging letters, the pair are wed, and return to begin married life alone on the wind-swept island.
On the island, the couple experience both joy and hardships. A fateful moment comes when a small boat washes ashore, containing a dead man and a crying baby girl.
This is a tale of secrets, deceit, and moral choices with heartbreaking consequences. The film starts well, building atmosphere, tensions and mood in glorious wind-swept locations, and crafting the love story between Isabel and Tom. From the start, the film is gorgeous to look at and creates at wonderful sense of the time period. But once the story’s central fateful decision is made, it is easy to guess what will happen next.
Derek Cianfrance is the perfect person to direct this brooding romantic tale. As Cianfrance’s previous films BLUE VALENTINE and THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES amply demonstrated, he has a deft touch with romance and tragedy. That skill allows him to craft a searing drama with moral overtones here, using the wild beauty of the seaside location to help build grandeur into the film. But make no mistake – this is still a weeper but just one set in a grand, sweep-you-away setting with sterling acting.
The film’s strength is in Cianfrance’s skill building romantic mood, its moving performances and gorgeous visuals. The film’s flaw lies with the too-predictable melodramatic story. Once that certain fateful event occurs, what will follow is plainly clear. After the expected tragic dilemma unfolds, the films does take a turn and it becomes less clear what will ultimately happen. The end result is a satisfying moral lesson but not a very surprising one.
The story touches on timeless questions of right and wrong but also deals with the echos of the war, not just Tom’s shattered nerves but the lingering anti-German feeling. This aspect comes out in the story of Hannah, the character played by Rachel Weisz, the daughter of a wealthy couple who marries a German immigrant, and faces discrimination and heart-ache through that decision.
The starkly beautiful location is almost another character in this story, an isolated world at the edge of a stormy sea, where anything can seem possible. The film was shot on location in New Zealand and the island of Tasmania, with Cape Campbell lighthouse in New Zealand standing in for the one on fictitious Janus Rock. Cinematographer Arkapaw, who also shot the Australian crime thriller ANIMAL KINGDOM and the visually-striking MACBETH with Fassbender, fills the screen with lush views.
This strong cast certainly helps lift the film, too. Fassbender is well-known as a gifted actor but the film may help lesser-known Swedish actress Alicia Vikander gain wider audience recognition. Fassbender’s talent is on full display as a quiet, lonely man whose deep sense of right and wrong comes up against his passionate devotion to his wife. Vikander, who turned in striking performances in EX MACHINA and earlier in the Swedish historic drama A ROYAL AFFAIR, gets to more fully display her acting range playing the vivacious, impulsive Isabel, whose tragic experiences and frustrated longing drives her to desperate measures. Rachel Weisz, as usual, is wonderful as the complex Hannah, a woman also driven by longing, but also grief and anger.
Supporting roles are filled with talented actors as well. Australian actor Jack Thompson (BREAKER MORANT) plays old salt Ralph, the captain of the ferry that resupplies Janus Rock, who becomes Tom’s steadfast friend. Fellow Aussie Bryan Brown (also in BREAKER MORANT), plays Hannah’s stern wealthy father, Septimus Potts. Septimus cut his daughter off without a cent when she defies him to marry German immigrant Frank Roennfeldt (Leon Ford). Frank is a gentle soul who nonetheless faces the wrath of the town for his heritage during the war. Septimus remains a strong-willed man but softens a little in light of the events that unspool, a transition that Brown handles well.
This is not a drama for every taste, as the story’s inherent melodrama keeps it grounded in its romantic genre. Still, for those who enjoy a good cry, and especially one set against a gorgeous natural landscape in a romantic, historic period, THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS provides the sweeping, satisfying, heart-tugging goods.
RATING: 3 OUT OF 5 STARS
THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS opens Friday, September 2
