Derek Cianfrance’s films have big emotions, sprawling, slow burn narratives and are steeped in conflict, romance, melodrama and more. He takes intimate stories, like a deteriorating marriage in “Blue Valentine,” or a relationship between two fathers on opposite sides of the law in “The Place Beyond the Pines,” and blows them up with Biblical importance and gravity. In the process, he wrings some incredible performances and powerful drama out of movies that might otherwise feel overwrought.
With his latest film “The Light Between Oceans,” he’s bestowed a small-scale character drama and romance with major emotion and conflict all on the surface level, but it hasn’t been expanded to Cianfrance size. It’s a modest tearjerker with spiritual qualities and a compelling story, but it doesn’t have the explosive moments that would make it truly resonate.
“The Light Between Oceans” is based on a novel by M.L. Stedman, unread by me. It’s set in 1918 shortly after World War I. Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender) was decorated in the war and now seeks a life of solitude as a lighthouse keeper on an island miles away from civilization. In time he meets and marries Isabel Graysmark (Alicia Vikander) and brings her to live on the island. They’re deeply in love, but twice Isabel suffers a miscarriage. And then suddenly, a boat appears washed up on the island. The man inside is dead, but a baby girl lives.
To reveal the choices they make and the aftermath of this decision would spoil the movie’s spark and excitement, and all this already consumes the film’s first hour. It’s mostly consumed with Tom and Isabel’s pleasant courtship and more atmospheric, mood setting shots of shimmering sunrises, cascading cliff faces and rippling tides. They’re beautiful to see but do little more than suggest Tom’s emptiness. It can’t help but meander.
Thankfully the film finds a direction in its second half, including a surprising gear shift similar to the story structure of “The Place Beyond the Pines.” And like that film, Cianfrance knows how to make use of a good MacGuffin and make it stick. The way he uses it, it’s the sort of plot device that inspires a gasp, and “The Light Between Oceans” is full of them.
The story appeals to a sense of protecting life and a higher power of forgiveness above the wants and needs of these characters. It strives for a spiritual, aspirational pull, but these characters and the film’s time period setting are by design much more reserved. At one point, Tom reads an inscription on a book given to him by his wife, which says they love each other “for ever and ever and ever…” It sounds massive and eternal, but like the film, it’s just a sweet sentiment that exists on a surface level.
Both Fassbender and Vikander have wonderful range and chemistry. He’s timid and distant before being stone faced and mysterious later in the film, and she’s buoyant and sunny before becoming despondent and brooding. And they truly give “The Light Between Oceans” its light, but there’s just a little substance missing in between.
3 stars