"The Light Between Oceans" Review
“I’m just looking to get away from things for a little while,” remarks Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender), a single man and veteran of the Great War. Sherbourne has been hired for a six-month stint at Janus lighthouse, whose caretaker has taken a convalescent leave. The name of the lighthouse, taken from the dual-faced Roman god of beginnings and endings, lends its name to this movie and the novel it’s adapted from. The lonely lighthouse, while only a few decades old, carries the faiths of its patron town. Residents hope that the beacon will “guide wealth and prosperity” to their edge of the map.
Such is our introduction to The Light Between Oceans, a deceptively dark, symbolist tale about the weight of postwar guilt and parental loss. The film is ultimately a redemptive one. However, it takes more than a few narrative bends before arriving at final conflict between the rightful parent of a baby girl and the two who have raised her to a toddler from infancy.
For the first half of the movie, Director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) delivers a thoughtful, beautiful, even sensual movie about love as a redeeming and renewing force. Alicia Vikander’s Isabel Graysmark quickly takes a liking to Tom. While it is not clear whether Isabel is simply attracted to Tom or sees a wounded man to save, the sparks between them ignite a flame and they are married. This is the first of several quick turns the film makes in order to get to the central conflict.
With The Light Between Oceans, Cianfrance breezes through the couple’s brief seaside courtship and two harrowing miscarriages, the latter of which foreshadows the doomed narrative ahead, in order to balance happiness and companionship atop the weary Tom’s back. No sooner than Tom has literally wrestled with the grave markers of his lost children, does a newborn arrive on the shore, deceased father in tow. Do they report the incident as every other meticulous entry in Tom’s log, or is this a divine sort of coincidence for a childless couple?
Adam Arakpaw’s cinematography captures the breathtaking isolation and splendor of the lighthouse as well as the intimacy of love and loss. Alexandre Desplat’s piano-driven score is equally brilliant, filled with moments of true uncanny to demonstrate the connections between hope and despair. As the movie drifts on, that spare beauty is traded in for heavy plotting and one beat-you-over-the-head biblical allegory. Some of this could be forgiven, but the tacked-on conclusion guides its vessel right into the rocks.
The Light Between Oceans also offers committed performances from leads Rachel Weisz, Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. Fassbender is a particular chameleon, despite always looking like himself. In that way, The Light Between Oceans disappoints by bumbling a trifecta of excellent cinematography, stirring score and strong acting. This is a film too accomplished to ignore, but too poorly plotted to satisfy.
Rating: C+
"Jason Bourne": Older Damon, Old Formula
Matt Damon is back in arguably his career defining role as Jason Bourne. The new film, re-teams Damon and director Paul Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum) and the formula still works. It’s the action and set pieces that make this spy thriller pop, while it tastes like bubble gum on it’s way out. You know, the kind that started out great but you’re getting a couple final chews out of it before you spit it out?
Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), embedded in a hacktivist group, hacks into the CIA and finds information that’s just good enough to bring Jason (Damon) back on to the grid. Or maybe, it’s the fact that she in particular contacts him to meet. Whatever the case, the two meet in Athens, Greece amidst an uprising, bringing the agency to the party as well. Armed with new information about his past, a chain reaction kicks off for Bourne to follow the trail.
In this installment, we’re introduced to the new CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) and the head of the CIA’s cyber ops division, Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander). Lee is put on the case after using her skills to prove she can keep up with Bourne’s moves. Vincent Cassel is also introduced as the knew Asset from the program, who just may have a tie to Bourne’s past as well.
Greengrass knows how to build tension visually. He gives us the lay of the land in a wide and then twists our focus with mids and close-ups as to keep us on edge with the characters. He offers us two amazing chase sequences in Athens and on the Las Vegas strip! It’s the type that will have you hold your breath, and if you need a reminder that it’s just a movie, you have to salute the choreography of it all!
While the film is stacked with a talented cast, everyone seems to have either dialed in their performance, or been written into a stereotypical corner. Vikander’s Heather Lee is fresh off the cookie sheet of other driven, elite hackers who have risen to the top of the bad guy class. She’s cold, calculated, but bland personality wise. Which is sad because Vikander is such a talent as evidenced by her recent Oscar win. Tommy Lee Jones just got paid for this one. He picked up a check and paid bills. It’s in Damon and Cassel, the two characters who do the least talking, that we get the heartfelt performances.
Jason Bourne is a solid entry into the franchise as far as giving us another chance to see Matt Damon as Jason. The action sequences alone are reason to see it in theaters on the big screen. It’s unfortunate that the overall story and some of its characters don’t get the same care!
Rating: C+
"Ex Machina" Review
When the lights go down in the theater I generally want one of two things. I’d like to be entertained or intellectually stimulated and challenged. “Ex Machina” is one of those films that does both!
Writer/director Alex Garland pulls you into his world immediately in the first minutes of the film as Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is the winner of...well we don’t know what, but his colleagues are extremely jealous so it must be good. We soon learn that he’s won a week long stay with Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Nathan is a legend in the computer programming world. He invented Blue Book (think Google), the company Caleb works for, and lives on an estate so large that two hours of flying in a helicopter covers a portion of it.
Upon landing on the highly secured grounds, Caleb learns that Nathan has him there to perform a “Turing Test”. The test is for a human to converse with an artificial intelligence (AI) and reach a conclusion on whether it has human consciousness. Enter Ava (Alicia Vikander), Nathan’s AI machine with a pretty human face. Caleb participates in seven sessions with Ava, one per day he’s there. Yet, with each day that he’s there, Caleb must decipher who he can trust in the highly secretive world, Nathan or Ava.
Isaac continues to deliver as the tech guru. He blends arrogance into his prodigy character in just the right way where we like him enough to go for a drink after work but would never invite him over for dinner. Vikander’s performance is all in her face, literally, as the rest of the machine is parts. Thus, the fascination of every slight “micro-expression” (as she may call it) in what her face communicates is as intriguing for us as it is for Caleb. Gleeson portrays the pure passion and excitement of his character in such a way that we’re easily won over and happy for his journey.
With a stellar cast in place, the key is the script and directing. Fortunately, both are handled with precision by Garland. The script keeps you wondering what will happen next with subtext riddled throughout, while his controlled pace creates an uneasiness that sticks with you from the moment Caleb enters the compound. Garland uses the entire frame to tell his story. Characters in the foreground are strategically placed in juxtaposition with characters in the background to keep the audience drawing conclusions as to what is really going on.
“Ex Machina” is an intellectual movie that explores technology, morality, and even how we perceive beauty. I have a feeling if Ava’s face was scarred, deformed, or even just a machine the film wouldn’t work as well. So if you’re looking to be entertained and intellectually stimulated this weekend, “Ex Machina” will deliver!
Rating: A-