“I really felt like I had to get my s- together and just be there and be as present as she was”. The writer and director of “Blue Valentine”, “The Place Beyond the Pines” and now, an adaptation of the M.L. Stedman novel “The Light Between Oceans ” confidently strides into stories of little hope and painful circumstance, using pretty actors and even prettier settings to create sweeping milieus of human devastation.
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Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender stole the show on Thursday (Sept. 1) as the couple made a rare public appearance together.
“‘Summer camp’ is something I’ve used to explain filmmaking to friends and family”, Vikander recently told Entertainment Weekly of filming with her boyfriend. And there are some very strong performances, particularly from Vikander and Weisz, whose character enters late in the plot but becomes essential to the movie’s message about what can happen when righteous anger gives way to forgiveness.
We’ll talk more about that mess in a moment. To promote the movie they both star in, The Light Between Oceans, Michael and Alicia have chose to talk openly about their relationship and what drew them together. But while Cianfrance keeps things managed early on, in the film’s later beats the complex problems the characters face become nearly too much for them to bear, let alone the audience. The married couple is now faced with a choice to keep the baby or report it. He’s clearly shaken to the core and wracked with guilt over his experiences in the war, and his love with Isabel lightens his emotional burden for a time.
Vikander is tasked with making us feel sympathetic for Isabel, even after Isabel flies off the rails.
The actors have been dating for two years and the X-Men star reveals their relationship began on set. Weisz marches the child’s mother forward with single-minded determination and an undaunted will to possess her. Vikander’s Isabel is desperately clutching at straws. How would you describe the movie to those thinking about seeing it. That weight makes it a hard film to love, but one you can appreciate. Rated PG-13 The Light Between Oceans takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotions, at least it took me.
Problems arise when they return to the mainland and come across a woman named Hannah whose husband and baby girl went missing at sea about the same time as Lucy washed up on their shore. Fassbender’s Tom is a quiet man who often speaks more through his expressions and gestures than his words and Fassbender expertly portrays him and draws the audience in. The acting in this film is spot-on. The shots where Fassbender is lighting the lighthouse are gorgeous.
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Tom (Michael Fassbender) returns home from World War I and immediately takes up work as a lighthouse keeper, a solitary occupation tailored for his battle-hardened soul.
