Out here, I'm only responsible for the light.

The Light Between the Oceans

(2016)

(SPOILERS) I’m a sucker for a good lighthouse drama. Or comedy (The Goodies’ Lighthouse Keeping Loonies being up there with the best). Unfortunately, Derek Cianfrance’s adaptation of ML Steadman’s novel The Light Between the Oceans isn’t that. It isn’t bad per se, and can boast a couple of very dedicated performances from Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander (and Rachel Weisz in an effective supporting role), but its melodramatic progression feels patently forced, such that you can see the plot staples popping out as its leads strain to invest their characters with plausibility.

Fassbender’s Tom Sherbourne, a reclusive and damaged World War I veteran (if only Diane Prince had been there to help him at just the right moment), seizes the chance to become lighthouse keeper at Janus Rock, off the coast of Western Australia, but it isn’t long before he falls for, and marries, Vikander’s Isabel Graysmark. Following two miscarriages, the arrival of a boat occupied by a dead man and a baby girl is greeted as a gift by Isabel, and she persuades the reluctant Tom not to report the incident and pretend the girl is theirs. The proceeding tale abounds with unlikely coincidence, in which, on a rare occasion they visit the mainland (for the baby’s christening), Tom just happens to see the actual mother (Weiz’s Hannah Roennfeldt) at the grave of her husband and daughter.

Tom’s growing guilt, leading to his sending Hannah notes and mementos, is convincingly portrayed by the Fass. And Vikander is hugely affecting as a mother overcome by the loss of her children. Still, though, it’s painfully evident, for plot expediency, that Tom is granted the picture’s moral centre while Isabel remains oblivious even when Hannah appears on the scene, so gradually reducing sympathy with her point of view and maternal attachment. This is a picture that, in order to stay its course, requires its characters to engage in Tom’s reticence from communication and expressed feeling, at least until Weisz’s sympathetic mother, struggling to find a path with a reunited daughter who just wants her “real” mommy back, is given the empathy and insight the main couple lack.

There’s a sense, as with his previous The Place Beyond the Pines, that Cianfrance lacks a firm grip on the storytelling side, that he’s plumped for a dramatic weepy but has only sporadic investment in or identification with the tale itself; you can see a similar interest in intertwining generational tragedies running through both films, with ellipses and the past returning to haunt protagonists. The Light Between the Oceans is gorgeously shot by Adam Arkapaw, and Cianfrance is a sensitive actor’s director, keen to linger and draw out as much resonance as he can from a performance, but he’s dreadfully let down by Alexandre Desplat’s over-emphatic score, almost a parody of the tearjerker, it’s so unsubtle. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a composer as variable as Desplat, who can completely make one movie and all but ruin another.

While it takes unconvincing dramatic licence at key points, The Light Between Oceans is at least more grounded than The Place Beyond the Pines, and more convincing overall. The introduction of Hannah, although burdened by an awkward and unnecessary flashback (Weisz is easily a great enough actress to carry inn her face and bearing all you need to know) that threatens to schism the picture halfway through, turns out to be the element that sustains it. It’s her character who can offer the forgiveness and understanding Tom and Isabel lack. And there is the hope of generations carrying this insight onwards, in the now adult Lucy-Grace (Slow West’s Caren Pistorius). Nevertheless, one almost feels there was a better, lower-key and more meditative picture here, one without the dramatic fireworks of the novel. As is not uncommon among his peers, Cianfrance appears to be a misconceived multi-hyphenate; he’s a much better director than he is screenwriter/adaptor.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

You guys sure like watermelon.

The Irishman aka I Heard You Paint Houses (2019)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps, if Martin Scorsese hadn’t been so opposed to the idea of Marvel movies constituting cinema, The Irishman would have been a better film. It’s a decent film, assuredly. A respectable film, definitely. But it’s very far from being classic. And a significant part of that is down to the usually assured director fumbling the execution. Or rather, the realisation. I don’t know what kind of crazy pills the ranks of revered critics have been taking so as to recite as one the mantra that you quickly get used to the de-aging effects so intrinsic to its telling – as Empire magazine put it, “you soon… fuggadaboutit” – but you don’t. There was no point during The Irishman that I was other than entirely, regrettably conscious that a 75-year-old man was playing the title character. Except when he was playing a 75-year-old man.

I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.

Joker (2019)
(SPOILERS) So the murder sprees didn’t happen, and a thousand puff pieces desperate to fan the flames of such events and then told-ya-so have fallen flat on their faces. The biggest takeaway from Joker is not that the movie is an event, when once that seemed plausible but not a given, but that any mainstream press perspective on the picture appears unable to divorce its quality from its alleged or actual politics. Joker may be zeitgeisty, but isn’t another Taxi Driver in terms of cultural import, in the sense that Taxi Driver didn’t have a Taxi Driver in mind when Paul Schrader wrote it. It is, if you like, faux-incendiary, and can only ever play out on that level. It might be more accurately described as a grubbier, grimier (but still polished and glossy) The Talented Ripley, the tale of developing psychopathy, only tailored for a cinemagoing audience with few options left outside of comic book fare.

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman.

Casino Royale (2006)
(SPOILERS) Despite the doubts and trepidation from devotees (too blonde, uncouth etc.) that greeted Daniel Craig’s casting as Bond, and the highly cynical and low-inspiration route taken by Eon in looking to Jason Bourne's example to reboot a series that had reached a nadir with Die Another Day, Casino Royale ends up getting an enormous amount right. If anything, its failure is that it doesn’t push far enough, so successful is it in disarming itself of the overblown set pieces and perfunctory plotting that characterise the series (even at its best), elements that would resurge with unabated gusto in subsequent Craig excursions.

For the majority of its first two hours, Casino Royale is top-flight entertainment, with returning director Martin Campbell managing to exceed his excellent work reformatting Bond for the ‘90s. That the weakest sequence (still good, mind) prior to the finale is a traditional “big” (but not too big) action set piece involving an attempt to…

You're skipping Christmas! Isn't that against the law?

Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
Ex-coke dealer Tim Allen’s underwhelming box office career is, like Vince Vaughn’s, regularly in need of a boost from an indiscriminate public willing to see any old turkey posing as a prize Christmas comedy. He made three Santa Clauses, and here is joined by Jamie Lee Curtis as a couple planning to forgo the usual neighbourhood festivities for a cruise.

The guy practically lives in a Clue board.

Knives Out (2019)
(SPOILERS) “If Agatha Christie were writing today, she’d have a character who’s an Internet troll.” There’s a slew of ifs and buts in that assertion, but it tells you a lot about where Rian Johnson is coming from with Knives Out. As in, Christie might – I mean, who can really say? – but it’s fair to suggest she wouldn’t be angling her material the way Johnson does, who for all his pronouncement that “This isn’t a message movie” is very clearly making one. He probably warrants a hesitant pass on that statement, though, to the extent that Knives Out’s commentary doesn’t ultimately overpower the whodunnit side of the plot. On the other hand, when Daniel Craig’s eccentrically accented sleuth Benoit Blanc is asked “You’re not much of a detective, are you?” the only fair response is vigorous agreement.

It's their place, Mac. They have a right to make of it what they can. Besides, you can't eat scenery!

Local Hero (1983)
(SPOILERS) With the space of thirty-five years, Bill Forsyth’s gentle eco-parable feels more seductive than ever. Whimsical is a word often applied to Local Hero, but one shouldn’t mistake that description for its being soft in the head, excessively sentimental or nostalgic. Tonally, in terms of painting a Scottish idyll where the locals are no slouches in the face of more cultured foreigners, the film hearkens to both Powell and Pressburger (I Know Where I’m Going!) and Ealing (Whisky Galore!), but it is very much its own beast.

I’m the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.

Last Action Hero (1993)
(SPOILERS) Make no mistake, Last Action Hero is a mess. But even as a mess, it might be more interesting than any other movie Arnie made during that decade, perhaps even in his entire career. Hellzapoppin’ (after the 1941 picture, itself based on a Broadway revue) has virtually become an adjective to describe films that comment upon their own artifice, break the fourth wall, and generally disrespect the convention of suspending disbelief in the fictions we see parading across the screen. It was fairly audacious, some would say foolish, of Arnie to attempt something of that nature at this point in his career, which was at its peak, rather than playing it safe. That he stumbled profoundly, emphatically so since he went up against the behemoth that is Jurassic Park (slotted in after the fact to open first), should not blind one to the considerable merits of his ultimate, and final, really, attempt to experiment with the limits of his screen persona.

Of course, one m…

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

I'm reliable, I'm a very good listener, and I'm extremely funny.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
(SPOILERS) When I wrote my 23 to see in 2019, I speculated that James Cameron might be purposefully giving his hand-me-downs to lesser talents because he hubristically didn’t want anyone making a movie that was within a spit of the proficiency we’ve come to expect from him. Certainly, Robert Rodriguez and Tim Miller are leagues beneath Kathryn Bigelow, Jimbo’s former spouse and director of his Strange Days screenplay. Miller’s no slouch when it comes to action – which is what these movies are all about, let’s face it – but neither is he a craftsman, so all those reviews attesting that Terminator: Dark Fate is the best in the franchise since Terminator 2: Judgment Day may be right, but there’s a considerable gulf between the first sequel (which I’m not that big a fan of) and this retcon sequel to that sequel.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog