The Light Between Oceans (MA15+)
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz
FROM the elegant haunting music of master movie composer Alexandre Desplat (Deathly Hallows, Grand Budapest, Imitation Game) to the stark but beautiful scenery – The Light Between Oceans stamps itself as a cut above.
With a story that could have slipped to the melodrama this could have been another Notebook (not meant in a good way) but instead the sum of its parts, from intense and yet restrained performances (particularly from Vikander and to a lesser extent Fassbender) to its music and scenery creates something infinitely watchable and tear-jearking in equal numbers. It is only pacing and a tendency to wallow that stops this really soaring.
Adapted from the Australian ML Stedman’s novel The Light Between Oceans takes us very effectively back to 1920s Australia (thanks in part to solid performances from Garry McDonald and Jack Thompson – yes there are Australians in this Australian story, but not that many – rest assured, this is no Thorn Birds).
The Australia we see here is one still shell-shocked from four years of war and in this climate a man fresh from four years at the front takes a job relieving at a remote lighthouse in Western Australia.
He’s hiding from life but from sparse visits and letters a local mainland girl takes his heart and brings him back to life.
However when he marries her and takes her to Janus to live with him in total isolation things change for both of them.
When they rescue a baby adrift in a rowboat life takes another emotional turn.
Vikander is outstanding as the bright young woman who is eventually worn down by life and tragedy but determined to hold on for dear life while Fassbender manages to impart the feeling of a man lost and found and lost again.
The problem with watching this as an Australia is that it is very easy to spend too much time waiting for the characters to go all “Meryl Streep”with their accents (mercifully all three leads do a pretty good job and don’t go too over the top).
It is a little slow – but then slow and steady wins the race in this case.
-Tania Phillips
