The Light Between Oceans

First Hit:  Strong acting by Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender had me feeling the intended pain and joy of their characters.

Doing the right thing to find inner peace in his life, Tom Sherbourne (Fassbender) has come to this small Australian town to serve as a solitary lighthouse keeper. The lighthouse is on Janus Rock, a remote island several miles from shore. He’s traumatized from his experience in WWI having seen and caused many deaths. He’s looking to repair his soul.

One of the men who helps to hire the lighthouse keeper has a daughter named Isabel Graysmark (Vikander). She is full of energy, life and is intrigued by the quiet somewhat brooding polite Sherbourne. On one of his trips onto shore, he has a picnic with her and their connection is sealed.

The chemistry on the screen is palpable and watching them together is curiously engaging. They marry and live in solitude on the island. They attempt to have children but Isabel miscarries and the pain of these scenes are a strong set up to what happens when they find a dingy washing up on the island with a small baby girl and a dead man inside. Tom wants to find the mother, but Isabel wants to keep the baby and bonds with it immediately.

Filling the hole inside her from her miscarriages drives her to convince Sherbourne to not take steps to find the birth mother. Some years later the birth mother is discovered and she lives in the same town.

Hannah Roenfeldt (Rachel Weisz) is mourning the loss of her husband and baby and Tom fights himself and Isabel to set the record straight.

There are some wonderfully staged scenes in this film including; when Isabel shaves off Tom’s moustache. The happiness of their first dance after the wedding. Tom’s speech about the Lighthouse where Hannah is present and he is lost at what to say and how to say it. The scene when Hannah and Isabel meet up in the fabric store and Lucy-Grace (Florence Clery) runs to Isabel’s arms. And finally when the adult Lucy-Grace (Caren Pistorius) visits Tom. This film was meant to pull on the audience’s heart strings and it does this really well.

Fassbender was amazing as the restrained and constrained man filled with a tough emotional past and learning how love could release him. His controlled words and actions, as provided for in the script, were powerfully shown and shared with the audience. Vikander shows why she won an Academy Award last year. She made Isabel frightfully real in so many ways, displaying the ability to move from one emotion to another in a way that was integrated. She was outstanding. Weisz was powerfully controlled in her role as the mother who lost her child, found her child and having to re-establish her role as mother when the child, rightfully, believed someone else was her mother. Wonderful performance. Derek Cianfrance wrote and directed this film. His ability to create the agonizingly beautiful and powerful scenes in this film, show his ability to get what he wanted.

Overall:  This film is heart touchingly aimed to bring a tear or two, and it does.

The Place Beyond the Pines

First Hit:  A good job of attempting to create a film about a very difficult idea and concept.

How much of our behavior comes from watching and being around our parents and what role does genetics play?

This has always been a difficult question to solve/resolve in science and how would a film address this? This is a film about what fate might be, about loss and about what drives a man to do certain things.

Ryan Gosling (as Luke) is a daredevil motorcycle rider. He unknowing father's a son with Eva Mendez (as Romina) and upon the discovery of this, turns to a life of crime to give his son the things he never got from a father he never knew.

This part of the film is exquisitely done. Enter Bradley Cooper (Avery) a cop which his father, a judge, thinks is a poor life/job choice. In a shootout he kills Luke. He learns that Luke has a 1 year old son just like him. 15 years later A.J. (Avery’s son) meets up with Jason (Luke’s son) and unknowingly of their father’s history, become friends.

However, they get into trouble and Avery realizes that the boy his son is hanging out with is the son of the man he killed. The story continues to develop from here as the sons begin to learn about their father’s earlier interaction.

There are aspects of this story that bring out the character of Avery, A.J. and Jason which are well done.

Gosling is amazing. The scene where he sits in church during his son’s baptizing, I realized, again, how good he can be. Mendez is great and perfect for the role. Cooper is very strong and can be believed as both the cop and Attorney General. Ben Mendelsohn as Robin a friend of Gosling's was fantastic. His character added depth to Gosling's role as well. Dane DeHann as Jason was very strong and carried through a believable Luke’s son. Emory Cohen as AJ was very good as well and brought enough darkness to make his angst believable. Ray Liotta was amazing at being able to make me dislike his crooked cop character in just 2 minutes. Ben Coccio co-wrote with Derek Cianfrance who also directed this very challenging and interesting film.

Overall:  This film can stay with you long after you leave the theater.

Blue Valentine

First Hit: This is a truly great film about a disintegrating relationship.

The present time scenes in the film take place over a couple of days, but through well selected and acted flashbacks, we see how they came to be of love with their partner and then slowly see the undoing.

This isn’t a feel good film, yet I felt inspired by the willingness of the script and director to show that neither of the characters are “at fault” for love’s undoing. Often it is the form of love that has to change. There are millions of stories like this in the real world and in each one, one of the parties has to take a step away from something they know cannot exist any longer.

Here, Cindy (played by Michelle Williams) realizes that the life she is having with Dean (played by Ryan Gosling) cannot go any farther. Dean’s view of their relationship is clearly put in one scene when she is asks him about expanding his potential and to apply himself to be something more than what he is doing. He responds by saying, why would he want to change anything, he makes enough money to spend time at home with Cindy and Frankie their daughter (played by Faith Wladyka). He doesn’t see any reason to change this nor does he have the need to have more money or a different stature in the public’s or his wife’s eyes.

Cindy is interested in changing her life, she wants more, and she’s interested in medicine and wants to further her career and feels trapped by the life she is in. Is either of them wrong? No, but how they behave towards each other in the expression of their internal anguish and frustrations creates a world that neither one can live in is what this film expresses.

This film provided enough of the beginning of their relationship in well sequenced flashbacks to show us why they chose to be together in the first place.

Gosling is clearly a wonderful and strong actor. When you match his work here with, Lars and the Real Girl and Half Nelson, you know this guy can act and can play very complex and quirky characters. This is a very strong performance. Williams was extraordinary and clearly well versed in her character. I could feel her struggles and anguish at not being able to see her future in this character. An amazing performance. Wladyka was perfect as their daughter bringing both wonder and maturity to her role as child inside of a disintegrating relationship. Derek Cianfrance and Joey Curtis wrote this excellent script while Cianfrance directed the actors with beauty. Cianfrance stitched together a very fine film and could receive an Oscar nod for this effort.

Overall: This isn’t a happy film, but it is real to life and executed with the strength and spirit of life as it is.