A slight ‘Light Between Oceans’

It's not easy to adapt a novel, even for a talented filmmaker such as Derek Cianfrance. I try to explain why in the review of Cianfrance's film "The Light Between Oceans" that I wrote for Spokane Public Radio:

In his how-to book “Making Movies,” acclaimed filmmaker Sidney Lumet differentiated between drama and melodrama this way: “In drama,” he wrote, “the characters should determine the story. In melodrama, the story determines the characters.”

Keep that differentiation in mind as you watch “The Light Between Oceans,” American writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s adaptation of Australian-born writer M.L. Stedman’s 2012 novel. And note that the difference sometimes falls between Lumet’s two extremes.

Regarding Cianfrance’s film, let’s begin with plot: Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender) is a wounded man. Not in body but in mind. He spent four years in the trenches as one of millions of soldiers shattered by World War I. Now returned home, he is seeking solitude, which he hopes to find as the lighthouse-keeper on a remote island off the Australian coast.

But when Tom meets Isabel Graysmark (Alicia Vikander), he finds himself reborn. And while manning his lonely post, he begins writing Isabel letters – which she returns. Soon love is in the air, a marriage follows, and then Tom’s island becomes a home for two.

Happiness, though, is so often a fleeting affair – especially in novels and movies. So it happens that the couple’s attempts to have children fail. One, then two, miscarriages leave Isabel despondent and Tom desperate to find a way to recapture their previous contentment.

Then comes the plot point that no doubt Lumet was referring to: One day a small boat washes up on the island’s shore. In it is a dead man and, miracle of miracles, a live baby girl. Isabella claims the baby, insisting it was providence that brought her to them. And Tom, reluctantly, agrees – burying the corpse and promising to raise the baby as their own.

But things are never that simple, not in life or in fiction. On a trip to the mainland, Tom learns that the dead man had a wife (Rachel Weisz) who is mourning the loss not only of her husband but also of her baby girl. And so begins the battle of Tom’s conscience. A battle that, not to give anything away, threatens to tear him – and his happy family – apart.

Now, based on the plot as recounted, it would be hard to see much difference between “The Light Between Oceans” and, say, “My Baby Is Missing,” a 2007 Lifetime movie about a career woman “ determined to prove that her newborn baby wasn't stillborn, but stolen and sold.”

The difference, though, involves two things: One, the cast. Both Vikander and Weisz have won acting Oscars, while Fassbender has received two nominations. Two, Cianfrance – the man behind the contemporary dramas “Blue Valentine” and “The Place Beyond the Pines” – is a talented visualist.

Taking full advantage of Australian cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, Cianfrance makes the scenery – which actually are Tasmanian and New Zealand landscapes – in essence a fourth character.

Even so, “The Light Between Oceans” never quite gels into the bona-fide drama it pretends to be. As Lumet might have said, the story is just too heavy for its characters to bear. And that includes even the gorgeous scenery.