Superb acting shines in ‘The Light Between Oceans’
Mr. Fassbender and Ms. Vikander make the most compelling pair of screen lovers in the grand David O. Selznick tradition
By Chris Knight, The National Post September 2, 2016 9:39 AM
Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander in The Light Between Oceans. The two actors fell in love during the making of this film.
Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander are two of the greatest actors working today. The Irish hunk can twist his face into the ghost of a sad smile that will haunt you for days; the Swedish beauty ('The Danish Girl') is conquering the world one accent at a time.
They meet in 1920s Australia, where he gives her one of those looks and they never look back. (They also fell in love for real, if you follow these things.) His character, Tom Sherbourne, is a First World War vet who has just signed up to look after a lighthouse on Janus Rock, 100 miles off the coast. (The fictional island is beautifully portrayed by New Zealand’s Cape Campbell.)
Vikander’s Isabel Graysmark falls hard for the taciturn yet gentle soldier, marries him and relocates to the island. Plans for a family are thwarted by two miscarriages; then one day a rowboat lands on the beach, its passengers a dead man and a newborn girl. It’s a soap opera moment, and not the last, but the depth of the characters is enough that we go along with this development, and the future dilemmas that flow from it.
Alicia Vikander in a scene from 'The Light Between Oceans,' based on the best-selling novel
Much credit must go to director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines), who also adapted M.L. Steadman’s popular 2012 novel. He has a way of taking details from the book and working them unobtrusively into dialogue, or turning a paragraph of description into a single shot – the plight of veterans becomes an image of amputees at a train station, for instance.
It’s also worth noting the contributions of award-winning cinematographer, Adam Arkapaw, in the painterly widescreen compositions; and of Alexandre Desplat, whose dreamy music wafts through the scenes. In one sublime moment, the sound of a piano being tuned gradually morphs into the movie’s score.
And we haven’t even gotten to the part played by Rachel Weisz as Hannah Roennfeldt, though perhaps the less revealed about her character the better.
Janus is named for the two-faced Roman god whence we get the word January. The rock looks out on two oceans, and also out from civilization as well as back to it. In a similar vein, 'The Light Between Oceans' has one eye on the coming awards seasons, the other on delivering some wonderfully weepy entertainment. Expect success on both fronts.
Watch: 'The Light Between Oceans' Official Trailer
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