The Light Between Oceans - a long and windy masterclass in emotional blackmail

In the film The Light Between Oceans, WW1 veteran Tom Sherbourne seeks work as a relief lighthouse keeper off the coast of Western Australia to replace an incumbent who ultimately doesn’t return to work.

Local girl Isobel lost two brothers in the war. The remote, rugged, chiselled Janus Rock location attracts Tom. But it’s his remote and rugged, chiselled chin that catches Isobel’s eye and she quickly woos him and soon has a rock on her finger.

Two traumatic miscarriages inside two years take their emotional toll on the couple. Yet when the ocean offers up a baby (and a dead man) in a wooden rowing boat that drifts towards the beach, Isobel convinces Tom to suppress the incident in his lighthouse log and take the chance to save a life. The couple keep the child as if it was their own.

Yet one family’s blessing is another family’s grief and Tom’s guilt leaves a trail, allowing the ethical dilemma to begin to be explored. No number of good choices and virtuous motivations can make amends for the original crime.

Alicia Vikander shows a mastery of the role of steely sea siren, luring the silent lighthouse keeper onto the moral rocks. Her grief is convincing and her emotional range is superb, so much wider than the introvert played by Michael Fassbender who is caught in the darkness between the rotating beams of light he operates. In the second half of the film, Rachel Weisz plays the mother of the washed up baby, a role that is superficial and far too shallow.

Running at 133 minutes long, the film is constructed of four half hour episodes followed by a fifteen minute epilogue. The scenery is bleak, the wind constantly howls, and the music is designed to hug at your heart strings and open up your tear ducts. Yet Derek Cianfrance’s masterclass in emotional blackmail was ultimately desensitising and the slow-paced melodramatic film failed to cast its spell over this audience member.

The Light Between Oceans is still being screened in many local cinemas.