Screened Out – The Light Between Oceans

[three-star-rating]Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz[/three-star-rating]

Ah, romance! What we want from these hanky-twisters is a tidal wave of emotions that drown us in complexity. The Light Between Oceans doesn’t do quite that, but it’s at least an invigorating swim.

Give all credit to the actors. All of it! Vikander is creepy as a disconsolate mother brought back from the edge of eternal darkness. Fassbender is her stoic husband, who must choose between his deep love for his wife and his rocklike ethics.

(The well-tossed gossip is that these two actors fell in love while making this movie.)

Vikander is Isabel, a passionate wife reeling from the depression of two miscarriages. Fassbender is Tom, her forthright but taciturn hubby just back from WWI; he takes an isolated job as a lighthouse operator. All they have is each other, and that’s not enough. It seems their marriage will sink. Then a probable miracle visits them.

But is it a miracle or a curse?

A boat washes ashore. The passengers are a dead man and a small baby. Isabel begs Tom to bury the man instead of reporting the death. They will raise the child as their own, even claim it as their own. The reignited light in his wife’s eyes convinces Tom to forego his usually granite-like morals.

That’s all well and good until Tom meets Hannah (Weisz), a woman whose story means that the baby is likely hers.

And if you thought Vikander and Fassbender were slaying their parts, wait till you see Weisz!

It’s because Hannah’s grief overwhelms Isabel’s. Hannah lost a child and a husband!

It all sounds wonderfully awful, right?

Unfortunately, everything becomes overblown. The shots sweep a little too much; close-ups linger a little too closely. The editing is ponderous. The music swells a little too loudly. We start to feel tossed and turned – manipulated in this little sea craft. Even a big melodramatic storm comes in to mirror the characters’ inner turmoil.

Oh, puhlease…

When a film’s seams start showing like this, it no longer sweeps us up.

In short, director Derek Cianfrance is better with much darker, sicker stuff. He showed the true ugliness of divorce in Blue Valentine. The Place Beyond the Pines explored how a father can be driven to horrible acts to support his child. The Light Between Oceans has just a little too much Hallmark Classic to it.

So we could blame M.L. Steadman’s sappy novel. However, the truth is that Cianfrance could’ve taken a subtler approach.

[rating-key]

Yet, some people can look past these flaws; they’ll still love this film.

Why? Because these actors subtly show what happens when love and ethics clash. The musical swells and extreme close-ups cannot rob strong performances. These characters embody more epic, heart-stopping storms inside of them that Cianfrance can throw up on screen.