Adapted from M.L. Stedman’s 2012 novel, the film, set between 1918 and about 1927, stars Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander as Tom and Isabel, a somewhat tenuously married couple-he proposes to her mostly out of loneliness, it seems-who live on a tiny island off the coast of Australia, where Tom mans a lighthouse.
Advertisement
Michael Fassbender refused to answer questions about his relationship with Alicia Vikander in a recent interview saying he does not want to discuss his private life. In reality, the film isn’t a completely dire piece of cinema, it’s just one that lets its aesthetic sometimes get the best of itself. As a film buff and avid reader, I appreciate both. I can’t say more other than that Rachel Weisz gets involved, as she seemingly must in every serious movie these days, and that the various babies playing the infant Lucy have been cast for maximum audience joy, as has Florence Clery, who plays the girl at age 4, when the screws really start tightening. We have a big dilemma here, and it’s heart-wrenching, mainly because it’s set in a very intimate approach to storytelling. And, in addition, it’s about something we can all relate to, which is parenting and what comes with that responsibility. 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.
Where Cianfrance uses this – I suppose – signature style of his so effectively in Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines, it’s a bit of a bummer that it doesn’t work as well with a story like the one in his latest film, The Light Between Oceans.
Fassbender plays Tom as a man whose emotions roil below a quiet surface. It doesn’t help that most everyone is the wrong age: Fassbender is 39 in real life.
And if two Oscar-worthy performances weren’t enough for one picture, have a look at Rachel Weisz as the widowed birth mother of Tom and Isabel’s adopted child. “The story just really affected me emotionally, I thought it was a real human story about dealing with life and what happens in life”. Torn between doing the right thing and doing what would heal his wife’s pain, Tom decides to treat the baby as their own, without declaring the accident. With no other people around, it obviously was easy to pull off that ruse. Their relationship is tender, loving and respectful, all aided by the purely transcendent chemistry between Fassbender and Vikander. It is the community’s strong anti-German feelings in that post-war time that forced the father, Frank (played by Leon Ford), to flee with his baby daughter in that small boat.
Advertisement
The Light Between Oceans is that kind of movie: With so little action to engage our attention (for over two hours), we can either succumb to the nods or idly begin to keep track of the little things. The idea of migration and immigrants is all around us today. Moreover, thanks to the timeless and relatable nature of the story as well as Cianfrance’s commitment to authenticity, this is one period romance that manages to evoke heavy sentiments without crossing over into schmaltzy territory. Many – all of the above, in fact – are rooted in reality, telling tales of economic struggle, single motherhood, racism, homophobia or disease. A lot of time, with the films we see now, they can be very disposable topics.
