Review of The Light Between Oceans (2016) by Arth J — 31 Aug 2018

A sculpture chiseled for the cast..

The Light Between Oceans.

The Light Between Oceans is a character driven romantic drama about a couple who is ready to take immoral steps in their lives in order to seek happiness. After a thundering adaptation in "Blue Valentine", Cianfrance had an enormous amount of expectations to fill in, which it fails to do so, despite of making a decent feature.

Ticking for more than two hours, such overlong features that too of this genre can milk its way out and offer mere dry emotions to the audience. But packed with finely edited screenplay; except for the first act, the feature is utterly gripping and compelling with layered concept emitting through each character's well thought out perspective.

Meddling with such fictitious premise, it leads the feature on such a borderline edge where people's opinion arguably may differ. But this is where Cianfrance; the screenwriter and director, comes in and flaunts his experience of brilliant execution skills.

There are moments in here which might be chalky around the edges due to inedible conversations and cheesy manipulative dialogues, but such sequences are confronted well enough by the cast and pulls them off with conviction.

The background score is decent along with costume designing but the cinematography steals the show in here with some jaw dropping visuals and live locations which is beautifully shot in here.

As mentioned, Fassbender is achingly good and Vikander's complex show-stealing act chills down the spine along with Weisz's surrendered support that binds all of it in and actually helps elevate the feature. Stellar performances, stunning visuals and morally complex and heartbreaking tale are the high points of the feature.

The Light Between Oceans is a sculpture chiseled for the cast to flaunt their finesse on screen with a wide range offered to them by the smarter adaptation.