The Light Between Oceans

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I don't read books, I watch movies. The only books I read are Comics. Also I don't appreciate people that exhibits vulgar display of power like the ones that posts: "Uh! I prefere the book...oh! the book is much better...OH! you should read the book...Oh! i can read...and yes, I read books, I'm smart...I'm sofisticated". Saying that, I think this movie is great. Loved it. Fassbender is one of the best actors alive. Love all his work. The pace is alright, the cinematography not bad, the story is good. But the drama, the interpretations, the dilemmas, the moral issues, are much more intense than any other movie i saw during the last decade. I think that it's impossible not feel very strong emotions when watching the movie. Actually I think it's impossible not to cry. I only wish that the soundtrack would be more envolving and intense. I mean it's not bad, but there's no "Vangelis" or "Zimmer" material here. And this movie deserves an epic song. It's very very strong. It's very very intense. One of the best dramas I ever saw. And like i said if you don't cry, i find it weird.

I decided to see this movie after reading a synopsis and review of the best-selling novel on which it's based. Unfortunately, what may work in a novel doesn't always translate well to screen, which seems to be the case here as this film was incredibly dull. Because the movie progresses chronologically, there's nothing that grabs you at the onset. It isn't until 45 minutes into the film that the main plot point is finally introduced. The movie opened with a dull, uninteresting scene of the main character being interviewed for a job as lighthouse keeper on a remote, desolate island, and ends pretty much the same way. The director could have generated more interest if he'd opened with a more powerful and intriguing scene and used flashbacks to fill in some of the backstory. The real mother reading the letter telling her the baby is alive, the sailor keying in on the unique baby rattle, or even the wife discovering the dinghy while on a lonely walk along the beach all would have been more interesting ways to open this film. The first 45 minutes could have been cut and you really wouldn't have missed anything. Sadly, the wind-swept island is the most interesting character in this otherwise plodding movie.

It's a paradox that films and novels which are overtly about the lives of people over several generations, replete with the pains and tribulations of life; emotional conflict is at the forefront and intended to carry its audience on the passions of the characters. While that is clearly the intention, the result is somewhat like a stop-motion still-life. On screen what we see are many shots of weather: transitions and cutaways; climate plays a big part in these films to underline emotions, something the writer got from an introductory course on creative writing. There are also shots of landscapes and skies and windows and sand and grass and all these shots interspersed with the characters being emotional, or quite as often, pausing reflectively while the shadow falls across their faces meaningfully, or a horizon at dusk, beautifully lit of course, and their stare pierces into the vast nowhere beyond. This might be called a pensive moment but no one is thinking because they are really being emotional, or trying to emotionally untangle the past where there was other emotion that caused grief which is not the like the emotion they have now which is really making it very painful with thunder and lashing rain. But in the brief periods when they are contented it's sunny and the sea is placid. Meanwhile the musical score – and it needs one – plays incessantly, not that it is interesting either, it uses similar stereotypical gestures, its moves with same overt declarative impulse. In all this emotion the story is nearly infantile it in its simplicity, it is one straightforward drama: it contains no other plots, no other elements which combine and deliver layers to beguile its audience. If this writing, if it can be called that, is compared with its template, the classic novel, the big difference and it's a very big, is that those books had vitality and well developed characters. It is abundantly evident in Zola or Turgenev, Balzac and others. What this deploy is take motifs and clichés: the solitary man, the isolated place, the echoes of war and the blurbs of 'achingly beautiful' are manufactured. This literary and creative defect is most obvious in the dialog, which is nothing more than platitudes. The characters run and embrace and declare more than enough but they are really inert and passive; things happen to them which make their 'lurrve' such a struggle. Stunning locations, photography, actors, set designer cannot disguise that this is essentially drivel, unsophisticated middle-class trash. Dorothy Parker reacted to the hypocorism in one of AA Milne's Winnie the Pooh books, and said that after few lines she had "fwowed up", which, with due consideration, is the correct response to this movie.

... where I should begin... First: I know the book so it was no news for me, what the story is about or how it ends. But. I've seen other movie adaptations from various books before where I was satisfied with the experience. Not this time. I have the feeling that they just didn't know what to do with this otherwise really great story, so they decided to just simply telling it without adding anything to it. ****SPOILER**** (They write letters, they marry, lost babies, baby in a boat, happiness, guilt, they took the baby, pain, prison, death, joy. There you go. ) *** SPOILER ENDS **** And this in 2 hours I mean... The characters are so badly written that it hurts. If you read the book, you'll have some sympathy for everyone in this story. Not in the movie. You'll hate Tom and Hannah's family and you'd like to feel sorry for Isabel, but Alicia Vikander is trying sooo hard to suffer, that you just can't. Oscar or not, I don't think she has quite the experience for such a role and for me it was painful to watch how she acts. There is of course the question if her character was written this way or was she just that bad. Fassbender is great as always, but his role doesn't allow much playground for him. The same for Rachel Weisz. The relationship between Tom and Isabel feels unnatural with zero chemistry the whole time so you are wondering why they are even together... I don't know how can someone cry or have feelings other than hatred watching this. They are wasting so much time for the beginning of the story that they have to cut the second half short which is a pity. We don't get to know the real mother , her story is really just cut short. Unfortunately it was a waste of time. I really don't recommend going to the movies for this.