Drama based on the novel by ML Stedman, starring Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weisz. First World War veteran Tom Sherbourne and his new wife Isabel are the keepers of a remote lighthouse in Australia. A child is the one thing they need to make their idyllic life complete but their dreams continue to be frustrated, until they discover a baby washed up in an abandoned rowboat.
Piling tragedy upon tragedy until it collapses under the weight, the fourth narrative feature from Derek Cianfrance makes a flagrant play for your heartstrings. Michael Fassbender is a stiff but sensitive war hero tasked with the management of an isolated Australian lighthouse after the First World War. One whirlwind romance with Alicia Vikander's mainlander later and the pair are nursing hopes of a family, a dream that seems destined not to be. However, when a baby girl washes up in a rowboat they decide to keep her, a decision that has devastating consequences. This showily sad, period (melo)drama is based on the ML Stedman novel. There's not much colour in the characterisation but cinematographer Adam Arkapaw imbues proceedings with intimacy, elegance and the occasional lick of much-needed grit. The performers, including a heartrending Rachel Weisz as the infant's biological mother, keep things compelling even as the desperation of an overlong narrative - which seeks to elicit tears at every conceivable turn - tries the patience. It's a film that has moments of buoyancy but that rapidly gets soggy.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Tom Sherbourne | Michael Fassbender |
| Isabel Graysmark | Alicia Vikander |
| Hannah Roennfeldt | Rachel Weisz |
| Septimus Potts | Bryan Brown |
| Ralph Addicott | Jack Thompson |
| Gwen Potts | Emily Barclay |
| Bill Graysmark | Garry McDonald |
| Violet Graysmark | Jane Menelaus |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Derek Cianfrance |
