‘The Light Between Oceans’ a couple’s heartbreaking moral dilemma

The latest film from writer-director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) hearkens back to the kind of awards bait prestige projects of the 1970s and 80s.

The cast of The Light Between Oceans talks about their film. Portraying the joys and pains of motherhood in Derek Cianfrance’s The Light Between Oceans that premieres at the Venice film festival yesterday was one of the biggest challenges for 27-year-old Swedish actress Alicia Vikander. It’s a struggle even writing this review for fear reliving the agony of sitting through the 2 hours and 15 minutes of filmic molasses that is The Light Between Oceans, whose title I just had to double check because even that is so boring I can’t seem to commit it to memory.

And they start raising the little one as their own, sinking deeper into the lie until Tom realizes that the mother, Hannah (Rachel Weisz), lives heartbroken on the mainland.

Michael Fassbender is Tom, a WWI veteran haunted by memories of combat who takes a job as lighthouse keeper off the coast of Australia in 1918. 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.

The positive in this approach is that it allows the actors to control the emotions of the film. These types of movies like to tackle tough stories and with the right casting choices they can be awesome.

But one that will stick with them long after they leave the theater. I saw how emotionally raw and sort of “ugly” they were willing to be with each other, and, in my opinion, that’s the mark of a great onscreen (and off-screen) pairing.

Vikander’s Isabel is the opposite of Tom, forthright, impulsive and openly emotional, collapsing into full body tantrums and meltdowns when things don’t go the way she hopes they will.

The duo later “properly” met during rehearsals for The Light Between Oceans, but their chemistry, Fassbender said, “was sort of there from the beginning”. It’s a sign, a blessing, surely not just a coincidence, she says. Add in Oscar victor Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) and you have the flawless combination of on screen talent for a romantic drama that evokes a wide array of emotions that I shall not soon forget. He added, “I was really impressed by her immediately”. I completely agree with you about the pacing. One day, Tom spots an errant dinghy off the rocky shoreline, and upon pulling it in to shore he finds a dead man and a living baby girl.

The movie is beautifully shot.