Choices have an impact on our lives, and depending on our decision, we can find ourselves taking very distinguishable paths. In the heart-wrenching drama, The Light Between Oceans, choices have been decided on, bringing about a devastating conclusion.
Tom (Michael Fassbender) is a survivor of The Great War, searching for a quiet place away from civilization, and there’s no better spot than Janus Island. His past has numbed him, and solitude has become his closest ally. He becomes the lighthouse keeper on the island, and even as its sole inhabitant, he can’t help but fall in love with a beauty from the mainland. Isabel (Alicia Vikander) is stunning and gives Tom a new purpose, so who can blame him for putting a ring on it rather quickly after some fond letters are passed along.
Haplessly, miscarriages become a menace to their “happily ever after,” appearing to be denied of having their own family. That is, until a rowboat washes ashore with a dead man and a distraught infant girl inside. In what must be fate, Isabel sees no reason to tell anyone while Tom finds himself fighting a new war within himself. He has his feet on solid moral ground but chooses love instead, giving in to Isabel’s wish for them to be parents. They find themselves playing house with unsparing consequences because the real mother is somewhere, aching with pain and sadness, searching for her little girl.
Rachel Weisz plays Hannah, the mother trying to piece her life back together after losing her husband and baby. Though moving on is not an option after receiving anonymous clues in her mailbox concerning her baby’s well being. Now seeping through Hannah’s grief is a glimmer of hope, and Weisz lays it all out there with moving confidence.
Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) is a magnificent storyteller of the complexities of being human. Our flaws, our ethical dilemmas, our successes, he extraordinarily captures who an individual becomes when faced with an indescribable situation. In The Light Between Oceans, Cianfrance’s camera gouges in to the souls of each character and stuns on all cylinders. The trio of tremendous performances are haunted, and Cianfrance lets their grieving eyes speak thunderously.
Fassbender is riveting as a husband being devoured by guilt. He is a first-hand witness to his wife’s suffering, yet their child is not theirs at all. As beautiful as she is talented, Vikander comes just shy of ripping her own heart out in the role of a wrecked wife desperately wanting to be a mother. But at what cost?
The Light Between Oceans exposes love in ways which can be greatly fulfilling and monstrously destructive. It strikingly paints a story of people straining to find happiness by overdosing on passion and devotion for those they love. Now imagine those same people being torn apart from what they venerate the most. The hands of time cannot be turned back.
The damage is done.
Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
Check out the SoBros Shop. Become a Patron. Give us money for no reason. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @SoBrosNetwork. Watch on YouTube.