Film Review: The Light Between Oceans

Derek Cianfrance is a master of beautifully shot anguish. In his films, both romantic and familial love is won, lost, fought for and crushed. His focus on emotional evolution over time can prove heartwrenching (the nonlinear Blue Valentine), or too sprawling (the overwhelming The Place Beyond The Pines) – but traditional is certainly not something he has ever been. Until now.

In this adaptation of ML Stedman’s novel, Michael Fassbender is all subsumed trauma and conflicted conscience as World War I veteran Tom, who volunteers to man a lighthouse on an uninhabited island. The isolation suits his disquieting military stillness; Fassbender’s gaze is a laser. 

Tom’s emotional moat is only traversed by Isabel (Alicia Vikander), a mainlander who moves to the island with him after they wed. Already a delicate soul, her vulnerability becomes an open wound after two miscarriages. When the couple discover a baby girl who somehow survived a sea accident, Isabel desperately demands that that they keep and raise her. When Tom later meets the girl’s grieving mother (Rachel Weisz), will he be faithful to his conscience, or his wife?

The melodramatic, almost Shakespearian plot relies on performance and directorial vision to emotionally ring true, but both waver. Vikander and Weisz prove stunning, both overflowing wells of emotion, complexly portrayed. However, Fassbender proves too stoic, his stifled portrayal of newlywed joy undermining the ensuing impact of conflict and grief. 

His restraint is echoed by Cianfrance’s surprisingly old-fashioned direction. Neglecting the stunning setting for distracting close-ups of his actors and eschewing sexual heat in favour of buttoned-up etiquette, he confuses closeness with claustrophobia, and tradition with trope. 

Both grand weepies and visionary directors have their place, but this combination does both a disservice.