Touchstone and Beyond: "The Light Between Oceans"
Marquee Attraction: The Light Between Oceans
Release Date: September 2, 2016
Budget: $20 million
Domestic Box Office Gross: $12,545,979
Worldwide Box Office Gross: $25,975,621
Plot Synopsis
Tom is a weary veteran of the First World War who takes a job as a lighthouse keeper. When he arrives, he is feted in the small town and then brought out to the island to start his new job. When he returns to the mainland for some reprieve, he meets Isabel. They fall in love and marry.
Isabel joins Tom at the lighthouse and as the time passes, Isabel gets pregnant and miscarries twice. Hurt by the loss of their potential family, Isabel is a wreck, and Tom doesn’t know what to do to help his wife.
When a rowboat with a dead man and a live baby wash ashore on the island, Isabel convinces Tom to keep the baby, claim it as their own, and bury the dead man. Worried about the duplicity of their actions, Tom agrees, and the couple start their life as a family.
As Tom and Isabel come back to town to introduce ‘their’ baby to family and friends, Tom meets Hannah, who is mourning the loss of her husband and child at sea. This loss sticks with Tom, and soon he learns that their daughter Lucy is Hannah’s lost child.
Tom cannot hold the secret forever, and eventually the lie that they concocted unravels. Tom and Isabel are forever hurt, and the lie they created in finding their daughter Lucy could ruin their future.
Standing Ovation
Fassbender and Vikander are incredible. They have magical chemistry on screen, and the relationship they have developed for their characters take a period drama piece and turn it into a memorable and effective story.
We need more films about lighthouses.
We need more films shot in Australia, and especially Tasmania. The scenery is beautiful.
Time for the Hook
Ordinarily, the plot device of kidnapping a child and raising them as their own is not something that I condone. However, given the breadth of the story, the range of emotion the actors bring to the screen, and the execution of the film from the director and cinematographer, I cannot find anything wrong with The Light Between Oceans.
Bit Part Player
Bryan Brown is famous for his work in a classic Touchstone Pictures film Cocktail. He has a small and short part here as Septimus Potts. He doesn’t get much to do in the film, but he plays Hannah’s father with such conviction and will, that the scenes he does get in the film are memorable.
Did You Know?
- The film grossed almost five million dollars on its opening weekend.
- Rachel Weisz was nominated for an Evening Standard British Film Award.
- Michael Fassbender was nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award.
- Director Derek Cianfrance was nominated for a Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film festival. The movie had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
- Though the story is set in Western Australia, much of the film was shot in the small town of Stanley in Tasmania, Australia.
- The lighthouse scenes were shot at Cape Campbell in Marlborough, New Zealand.
- Fassbender and Vikander started dating after shooting the film. According to the couple, director Cianfrance made them live together for six weeks on set.
- This was the last film to be released by Touchstone Pictures through the DreamWorks distribution deal.
- The movie is adapted from the M.L. Stedman 2012 novel.
- Stedman was sued for plagiarism of another story as the inspiration for the book but was victorious in the lawsuit.
Best Quotable Line
“You only have to forgive once." This line originally comes from Hannah’s husband, but it is used throughout the film by a variety of characters. This line speaks to the emotional toll that grudges and anger hold, and how the act of forgiveness can be a freeing experience.
Bill’s Hot Take
The movie never had a chance. Disney didn’t know what to do with it, and DreamWorks had all but given up on being a viable studio. What a loss of cinema due to lack of care from executives. The Light Between Oceans should have been an Oscar powerhouse.
Casting Call
- Michael Fassbender as Tom Sherbourne
- Alicia Vikander as Isabel Graysmark
- Rachel Weisz as Hannah Rosenfeldt
Production Team:
- Directed by Derek Cianfrance
- Produced by Touchstone Pictures / Heyday Films / LBO Productions
- Written by Derek Cianfrance / M.L. Stedman
My Critical Response:
{Snub-Skip this Film, Lifeboat Award-Desperate for Something to Watch, Commuter Comforter-A Perfect Film for Any Device, Jaw Dropper- You Must Watch This Film on a Big Screen, Rosebud Award- This Film is Cinema.}
Great period dramas were a signature of the 1990s with Merchant/Ivory films. The Remains of the Day is one film that could have and should have gotten all the Oscars because of a cast that brought a very stifled setting, the support staff in a 1930’s aristocrat house, to such dramatic life. Downton Abbey has nothing on the crew led by Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
I have digressed a little bit, but the point is, rarely do I find a film that belongs in The Remains of the Day level of brilliance, and that is where The Light Between Oceans stands. It is incredible and looking back on where this film ended up in the Touchstone DreamWorks deal, I am saddened to see that it was burned off in the last of the deal at the start of September as a last act in the existence of Touchstone Pictures.
I am very happy to report that The Light Between Oceans is a fantastic film and is one worth watching. That is why The Light Between Oceans gets my Rosebud Award.
Coming Soon
Next week, a look back at Scenes from a Mall.