Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, and Rachel Weisz star in this heart-wrenching adaptation of the bestselling novel.
“A tender examination of emotional devastation, and how we humans have a natural tendency even after being capsized in a raging storm, to right ourselves and once again navigate toward the light.”
– Robbie-Ann McPherson, The Buffalo News
“Like a Thomas Hardy adaptation filmed by David Lean….a tasteful tearjerker.”
– M. Faust, The Daily Public
“Mr. Fassbender and Ms. Vikander make one of the most compelling pairs of screen lovers in the grand David O. Selznick tradition that I’ve come across in many years.”
– Stephen Holden, The New York Times
“A widescreen ode to the beauty of absolution….Alicia Vikander shines bright.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire
“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”
– David Sexton, London Evening Standard
“A mesmerizing, engrossing and beautifully made cinematic experience, rare as a pink unicorn, that enchants for more than two hours and makes you wish for at least one hour more.”
– Rex Reed, New York Observer
“Alicia Vikander is luminous.”
– Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly
“Hugely watchable….It will put you in a wobbly sort of trance.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“I loved it.”
– David Poland, Movie City News
DreamWorks Pictures’ “The Light Between Oceans” is a heart-breaking drama about fate, love, moral dilemmas and the lengths to which one couple will go to see their dreams realized.
Starring Academy Award® nominee Michael Fassbender, Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander, Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Rachel Weisz, Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson, the film is written for the screen and directed by Derek Cianfrance based on the acclaimed novel by M.L. Stedman.
In the years following World War I, Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender), a young veteran still numb from his years in combat, takes a job as lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a remote island off the coast of Western Australia. As the island’s sole inhabitant, he finds comfort in the monotony of the chores and the solitude of his surroundings. When he meets the daughter of the school’s headmaster, Isabel Graysmark (Alicia Vikander), in the local town of Partageuse on the mainland, Tom is immediately captivated by her beauty, wit and passion, and they are soon married and living on the island.
As their love flourishes, he begins to feel again, their happiness marred only by their inability to start a family, so when a rowboat with a dead man and infant girl mysteriously washes ashore, Isabel believes their prayers may have finally been answered. As a man of principle, Tom is torn between reporting the lost child and pleasing the woman he loves, and against his better judgment he agrees to let Isabel raise the child as their own, making a choice with devastating consequences.
