The following is a quote about the novel upon which the movie is based. I can find no movie synopsis yet. I don't see any spoilers in this quote, so I post it here:
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"The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman (Goodreads Author)
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.
Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom's judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is 2 years old, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.
M. L. Stedman's mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel's decision to keep this "gift from God." And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another's tragic loss. The greater part of this movie moves at a glacial pace. Words and conversations are held to a minimum in order to take in the vast and isolated seascape that surrounds the world of the isolated lighthouse. Often when the characters speak, their whispering voices can barely be heard above the crashing sea and moving film score."
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The story builds slowly—but surely--as more and more is unveiled about a baby girl and a dead man who are washed ashore (in a small lifeboat) and their connections to characters on the mainland. These connections present ethical dilemmas for Tom (Michael Fassbender), Isabel (Alicia Vikander) and Hannah (Rachel Weisz).
In watching this movie, I think there is more to the backstory, and its meaning, than can be presented on the screen. For example, I believe it is important to understand that Michael Fassbender's character and the dead man (with the baby girl) on the small boat have something in common that may bind them invisibly to each other. They have both come to Australia to find peace after the brutal war they have just been fighting in. The story begins in 1918. The dead man in the boat is a German who had fought against the allies during WW I, and he had not been well received by the townspeople of the small Australian town where he courted and married Rachel Weisz's character. Does the book stress this in any way or elicit the reader to make any connections about their common experiences and their reaction to them? The movie sort of hints at it without directing us to it.
Also, I can't help but feel that the little girl, Lucy-Grace, may signify a connection to the two families who end up raising her; she might represent both light and grace.
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"The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman (Goodreads Author)
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.
Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom's judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is 2 years old, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.
M. L. Stedman's mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel's decision to keep this "gift from God." And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another's tragic loss. The greater part of this movie moves at a glacial pace. Words and conversations are held to a minimum in order to take in the vast and isolated seascape that surrounds the world of the isolated lighthouse. Often when the characters speak, their whispering voices can barely be heard above the crashing sea and moving film score."
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The story builds slowly—but surely--as more and more is unveiled about a baby girl and a dead man who are washed ashore (in a small lifeboat) and their connections to characters on the mainland. These connections present ethical dilemmas for Tom (Michael Fassbender), Isabel (Alicia Vikander) and Hannah (Rachel Weisz).
In watching this movie, I think there is more to the backstory, and its meaning, than can be presented on the screen. For example, I believe it is important to understand that Michael Fassbender's character and the dead man (with the baby girl) on the small boat have something in common that may bind them invisibly to each other. They have both come to Australia to find peace after the brutal war they have just been fighting in. The story begins in 1918. The dead man in the boat is a German who had fought against the allies during WW I, and he had not been well received by the townspeople of the small Australian town where he courted and married Rachel Weisz's character. Does the book stress this in any way or elicit the reader to make any connections about their common experiences and their reaction to them? The movie sort of hints at it without directing us to it.
Also, I can't help but feel that the little girl, Lucy-Grace, may signify a connection to the two families who end up raising her; she might represent both light and grace.