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The Light Between Oceans

2016

Derek Cianfrance

Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz, Bryan Brown ...

6.3

4,399

Drama A lighthouse keeper and his wife living off the coast of Western Australia raise a baby they rescue from an adrift rowboat.

	Author	Review
United States	Owen Gleiberman Variety	"'The Light Between Oceans' winds up taking one too many self-serious twists and turns. The film earns its darkness, but it might have been even more affecting if it didn’t shrink from the light."	NEU
United States	Jon Frosch The Hollywood Reporter	"The film, poised awkwardly between costume-drama prestige and all-out schmaltz, is so busy sweeping us up in a swirl of music, scenery and beautiful, suffering faces that it forgets to do the actual work of earning our emotions."	NEG
United States	Stephen Holden The New York Times	"The film's solemn visual rhythms exert an almost hypnotic spell that for a time gives a heroic dimension to a story as emotionally fraught as a vintage Bette Davis melodrama"	POS
United Kingdom	Tim Grierson Screendaily	"Poignant and frustrating in equal measure, it aspires to be an elegant melodrama, but the intelligence that director Cianfrance and his capable cast bring to bear eventually becomes overwhelmed by the story’s emotional manipulations."	NEU
United States	Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times	"A gorgeous but plodding and borderline ludicrous period-piece weeper."	NEU
United States	David Ehrlich IndieWire	"This is a widescreen ode to the beauty of absolution, told with such constant sincerity that you can’t help but want to forgive its flaws."	POS
United States	Alonso Duralde The Wrap	"The movie veers off into Nicholas Sparks territory (...) Until that point, 'The Light Between Oceans' is a gorgeous and sad tale, brought to life by three extraordinary performers"	NEU
United States	John Anderson The Wall Street Journal	"Everything in 'The Light Between Oceans' is deeply felt and dramatically precise, in a way that seems destined to become profoundly personal for each and every viewer"	POS
United States	Stephen Whitty New York Daily News	"'The Light Between Oceans' starts brightly, then dims (...) Halfway through, overloaded with baggage, the movie finally starts to sink — and takes its whole crew down with it"	NEU
United States	Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times	"A gorgeous but plodding and borderline ludicrous period-piece weeper (...) I’m just not sure anyone could have turned this soap opera material into anything other than a sweeping, credibility-stretching, overwrought … soap opera (...) Rating: ★★ (out of four)"	NEU
United States	Rodrigo Perez The Playlist	"'The Light Between Oceans' is a little too precious and too enamored with itself (...) Cianfrance is a terrific director with an affinity for human empathy, heartbreak and loss, but these elements just don’t hold water all the way through"	NEU
United States	Leah Greenblatt Entertainment Weekly	"The whole thing is feverishly earnest and more than a little manipulative, but it's also possibly the prettiest two hours of emotional masochism so far this year"	POS

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