Michael Fassbenderis without a doubt one of the best actors working today, but that doesn’t mean that viewing any of his films is a particularly uplifting experience. Fassbender seems to almost exclusively pick projects with a foreboding sense of doom and gloom. Ever since he kicked off his career withSteve McQueen’s 2008 masterpieceHunger, Fassbender has been drawn to dark, disturbing, and tortured characters in projects includingShame,12 Years a Slave,Inglorious Basterds,Macbeth, andDavid Fincher’sThe Killer, to name a few. While it’s great to see Fassbender thrive in his niche, it’s also interesting to see whenever an actor can challenge the preconceived expectations that an audience may have for them. Even though he’s most often associated with perpetual misery, Fassbender got the chance to show off his romantic side in the underrated 2016 period pieceThe Light Between Oceans.
The Light Between Oceans
What Is ‘The Light Between Oceans’ About?
The Light Between Oceanshails fromBlue ValentineandThe Place Beyond the PinesdirectorDerek Cianfrance, and while it’s not quite as downbeat and disturbing as those two films,The Light Between Oceansdoes capture a similar sense of ethereal beauty. The film is based on the acclaimed novel of the same name byM. L. Stedman, and takes place in the immediateaftermath of World War I. The veterans of the war are forced to make the uncomfortable transition back to reality, despite getting used to the rigors and trauma of combat. Fassbender’s character, Tom Sherbourne, finds this shift in his priorities particularly challenging. He’s used to having to fight for his country, but now,he doesn’t know what his real purpose is.
Tom takes up a lonely position as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock off the coast of Australia. It’s an isolated post that isn’t similar to the sort of position that he would have served in during the war. Tom is content to stay within the confines of his position, but unexpected circumstances introduce him to the local girl Isabel (Alicia Vikander). Surprisingly, Tom finds that the warmth and compassion thatIsabel brings to his life is exactly what he needed. He has never allowed himself the chance to be happy, and during the war, he never fought for anything other than his own survival. Thanks to Isabel, Tom realizes that he actually does have something (and more importantly, someone) that is worth fighting for.Vikander is no stranger to period pieces, and plays the role of Isabel perfectly.
The dynamic between Fassbender and Vikander is simply terrific within these opening moments. At first, Fassbender’s withdrawn gravity doesn’t feel all that different from his performance as Magneto in the X-Men series. However, Isabel is able to unlock a part of Tom that he has long kept dormant. She realizes that more than anything, he is afraid. Tom is afraid of failing himself and the ones that he cares about, and it takes Isabel’s genuine warmth to convince him that a relationship’s fleeting nature gives it value. These momentsgave Fassbender the chance to show an unexpected romanticismthat wasn’t present within any of the earlier performances in his career.
Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander Have Incredible Chemistry
The Light Between Oceansalmost exclusivelyrelies on the chemistry between these two actors. While Cianfrance decks the screen with beautiful images of post-war Australia, the film doesn’t really start introducing new characters until its third act. It simply relies on Fassbender and Vikander feeling like a real couple, and they do a great job of avoiding points in which their relationship could feel like melodrama. Tom isn’t necessarily a verbose character, and despite Isabel’s charms, she’s also relatively quiet. There’s a lot of prolonged moments of the two characters staring off into the distance, but this feels like a somewhat accurate depiction of what life would have looked like at the time for characters in this position.
Fassbender and Vikander effectively show howTom and Isabel’s relationship matures over time. While at first their relationship is enough, Isabel begins to desire something more. Tom is so busy completing his duties at the lighthouse that any additional responsibilities might feel like a burden, but he becomes enthralled when Isabel begins discussing the notion of them becoming parents. It’s another moment in which the feelings of “normalcy” wash over Tom when he’s least expecting them. He had once been content to live alone, and the idea of fatherhood had never occurred to him. While Tom’s upbringing is never discussed, it’s implied that familial compassion isn’t something he has a lot of experience with. But it’s this implication of a backstory that is never explicitly discussed that makesFassbender’s best performancesfeel so personal.
‘The Light Between Oceans’ Is Michael Fassbender at His Most Sensitive
This sensitivity that Fassbender brings to his characterization of Tom makes the subsequent story twists more devastating. Isabel loses a few children due to the limited medical resources and facilities on the shore, and each loss completely guts Tom. While it’s not enough to deter his desire to make Isabel happy,Isabel’s miscarriages cause Tom to withdrawback into the dormant emotional state that he was in during the beginning of the story. His relationship with his prospective children is different from the one he has with Isabel. While Isabel had come into his life unexpectedly, taking him by surprise, he’s allowed himself to genuinely anticipate getting to raise a child of his own.Fassbender has shown an incredible physical commitmentto his roles, but with Tom, he faces an emotional reckoning. After all the bloodshed and violence that Tom has witnessed, is he willing to accept the responsibilities of fatherhood?
Misery and heartbreak have a place in Fassbender’s filmography, and they have their place inThe Light Between Oceansas well. What makes the role a different one for Fassbender is that he is not an emotional brick wall that doesn’t yield any sense of heartbreak; every dramatic turn that the story takes affects Tom, and Fassbender shows it withhis most sensitive performance to date. It’s an outlier in his filmography, but it’s the type of outlier that shows how truly multifaceted Fassbender really is. It hopefully won’t be the last time that he toils with the romantic genre. Who knew that Magneto himself could be such a charmer?
The Light Between Oceansis available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
