The Light Between Oceans was a flawed movie that is likely to bore many, if not most, of its moviegoers. This was evidenced by the guy sitting behind me who was sawing logs for the entire second half. But I am a sucker for broken relationship movies caused by some strife, and that’s what I got here. The only thing I knew about this movie was that it was about a couple living on a small island while he managed a lighthouse and that they found a baby in a boat they took as their own after she suffered a series of miscarriages. I wish I had gone in knowing nothing about this movie.
All I needed to know was that it was a heavy drama, that it featured one of my favorite actors (Michael Fassbender – Shame, Steve Jobs), one of the following great actresses of our time who arrived on the scene with two massive performances in 2015 (Alicia Vikander – Ex Machina, The Other Danish Girl), and the director of one of my favorite movies of all-time (Derek Cianfrance – Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines). That enough would have gotten me in the theater. That is enough for me to give this a positive review despite a story that had much promise but had some uneven turns, ultimately leading to characters making decisions that didn’t make much sense. What I loved most about this movie (which will be the focus of this review) is how two different people can face the same ethical dilemma and how the decision can eat one person up so much that they almost can’t live with themselves. In contrast, the other person can continue living their life peacefully as if the decision they had to make was whether to have sausage or pepperoni on their pizza the night before.
The Place Beyond the Pines is a place you do not need to visit anytime in the near future. Director Derek Cianfrance and Ryan Gosling (
Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine did nothing but further enhance my opinion that 2010 has been the best year for movie releases in my lifetime. Blue Valentine was one of the few movies of 2010 that I did not see in the theatre, and I can only imagine the impact it would have had on me had I seen it on the big screen. It is a raw, emotional antithesis of the ideal life. As the movie ends, you will be grateful that what you have just seen does not parallel your life and hope it never will.