Really liked this one. It's nowhere near as great as Derek Cianfrance's previous films and honestly fans of his going for the direction may be let down - this is an unabashedly mainstream weepie in the vein of a slightly more depressing Nicholas Sparks story than anything else, and really should have been sold as such in the marketing. It's actually a rather curious transition for the filmmaker as both of his last entries were a lot more subtle in their undertaking. However, this is still a satisfying drama with more than enough to recommend. It's absolutely gorgeous to look at, with lush cinematography and set design, and I thought the entire cast was great. Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weisz were particularly fantastic - though I wish the latter was used a little more (and her arc felt slightly cut in the editing room with the backstory involving her husband). The child actress Florence Clery is also adorable and heartbreaking. The score by Alexandre Desplat is also lovely. B+

Although The Light Between Oceans starts out as Harlequin Romance: Lighthouse Keeper Edition, the romance quickly sinks deep into the background and it becomes a good old-fashioned weepy. What back in the day would have been referred to stereotypically as a 'woman's picture'. And it's a corker of a tragic tale! A mother love tragic tale, not the more common couples love variety. I'm not a huge fan of either Fassbender or Vikander, but they acquit themselves quite well here. Those jonesing for their latest hyperedited shakycam fix, will likely find the movie's stately pacing and minimalist dialogue paralyzing. But for those wanting to wallow ever deeper into the emotional currents of this story - step lively, the next sailing is in half an hour. *B+*

Returning from the Western Front after the Great War and hoping to escape society for a while, Tom (Michael Fassbender) agrees to a job tending to a lighthouse on an isolated Australian island. Later, during a brief return to the mainland, he weds the beautiful Isabel (Alicia Vikander) and brings her to his secluded post. Their relationship is strained after several pregnancies end in stillbirth. When a rowboat washes ashore with a baby and a dead man, Isabel interprets it as a miracle, a gift, and convinces her husband to secretly bury the body and present the child as their own; Tom is pleased for his wife and becomes an enthusiastic father, though he is quietly haunted by the amorality of their ruse, particularly after encountering the real mother (Rachel Weisz), still grieving the husband and newborn daughter she believes are forever lost at sea.

On an aesthetic level, the level of pomp and spectacle, The Light Between Oceans is a gorgeous, gorgeous film; every visual element from the grand (the lighthouse and island vista) to the minute (a bedspread, a child's toy) is just so and indicative of fastidious art direction and exotic location scouting. And the three A-list leads are, of course, hugely talented; with the utmost conviction and prestige, each is able to sob and/or stare into the distance as if contemplating the enormity of heaven and earth. Also wonderful are the various child performers found to play the disputed daughter from infancy through preadolescence. Each is entirely natural and radiant in front of the camera.

Despite these qualities, the overall film, a studio-financed and unexpectedly classical/non-confrontational/Lasse Hallström-esque melodrama by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines), did not enchant or move me in the profound as I hoped. It has a rather dead-eyed center. Several decisions and relationships are inexplicable or poorly examined despite an ample length of around 2 hours and 15 minutes and a leisurely pace. The issue partly is the way the characters are so clearly operating within a heavy-handed and mechanical maze of a plot; the intended poignance is ultimately undermined by the storytelling's busy, overwrought timbre. In general, the superficial beauty (of the actors, of the landscape, of the sets and costumes) does not intertwine with and elevate the actual content; rather, it serves to distract, and only to a degree, from the material's tendency toward the cloying and the contrived.

C+

I clearly value detachment more than you.

I should say I have no problem with this type of movie as a rule. I absolutely love, for instance, Out of Africa and The Cider House Rules. This one just does not connect in the right way. It does not entirely sell or earn the sweeping, sun- and moonlit pathos to which it aspires. The third act is particularly flat, with everyone running around deciding what to tell the police and when, as well as the oddly inserted flashbacks humanizing the dead man in the boat.

Surprisingly, I was with it through the gushy love story. The first hour is actually kind of compelling. Then the story kicks in (not on the island, but at the graveyard) and like a switch I just stopped caring. Maybe its because I found the movie's moral quandary kind of dull? I can't say I blamed them. I think like Fassbender the guilt would've eaten away at me. But then the movie plays out exactly as it should. There isn't one curveball thrown in. And, surprise, it winds up dull.

The three leads give great performances, but the movie could've ended with the kid dead on the rocks and I pretty much would've had the same reaction to it.

Its a trumped up Nicholas Sparks movie. Throw in all the Oscar nominees/winners you want, but a dull melodrama is still a dull melodrama.

C

I also would've liked more Bryan Brown. That storyline is too glossed over.