The Light Between Oceans doesn’t quite connect emotionally

I get that we’re supposed to accept that the grief Isabel experiences as a result of her miscarriages, one of which she just suffered, prevents her from thinking clearly, and that’s why it doesn’t occur to her that the child has a mother who is missing her. To capture Isabel’s awestruck arrival on the island, he brought Vikander to the set in a blindfold on her first day and had her wait indoors until sunrise. A veteran of lower budget independent productions, The Light Between Oceans shows promise to be his breakout picture.

Michael Fassbender has an impressive list of leading roles on his resume.

Cianfrance, 42, particularly praises the performance Fassbender. Director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) leaves us to consider what we’re willing to do, how much we’re willing to endure, for the person we love most in the world. Much of the initial expositional dialogue is borderline painful, especially contrasting against an otherwise beautifully subtle film.

But where the dissolving marriage in “Blue Valentine” was so tangibly real that it felt as raw as a breakup, “The Light Between Oceans” crashes into the shores of its own unusual story, pummeling the audience with Big Feelings that never quite cut through. In town he meets Isabel (Academy Award victor Alicia Vikander), and their swift courtship quickly leads to marriage. In it is a dead young man-and a crying baby girl.

After losing a baby of their own, a lighthouse keeper and his wife rescue a baby adrift in a rowboat. It began in 2013 with a classic meet-cute: on the dance floor during the Toronto International Film Festival, where the two were promoting their respective 12 Years A Slave and The Fifth Estate.

Then Tom encounters a heartbroken woman (Rachel Weisz) whose husband and infant daughter were lost at sea. Will Lucy stay with Tom and Isabel or will she be reunited with Hannah? Vikander’s cause isn’t helped by the fact that the most complex and compassionate acting in the film comes from Rachel Weisz, whom Isabel is pitted against when we learn she is the child’s mother. This is definitely a film that makes you work as an audience member. Rated PG-13 The Light Between Oceans takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotions, at least it took me. Not really. I could say that went off and sort of tried to run a lighthouse for awhile, but – Do you like being alone. Cianfrance proves again that he can handle extremely hard material but allowing his actors to carry the films. It’s one handsome shot after another. Sometimes, scenes are awash in natural light while other times he lingers on the sun-dappled settings a bit too long.

Fortunately, none of that takes away from the acting jobs turned in by Fassbender and Vikander.