Veteran of World War I haunted by his memories, Tom Sherbourne is sent to the remote island of Janus Rock to become the lighthouse keeper. He moves there with his wife Isabel, but their peaceful plans collapse when they learn she cannot have children. Then one day, a boat with a dead man and a baby runs aground on the island. Tom and Isabel decide to bury the man and raise the little girl, whom they name Lucy. But a few years later, they meet Lucy’s mother, who thinks her child was lost at sea, not suspecting they have stolen it...

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Love Derek Cianfrance’s movies always seem to be tragic – see the tortured lovers in Blue Valentine, the broken families of The Place Beyond the Pines. Somewhere between the two, The Light Between Oceans is less subtle and captivating, because its melodrama is taken to excess, with a twisted, passionate and painful story that gnaws at its characters until it destroys them. Unlike Cianfrance’s previous films, his classic formula does not hold up this time: without the excellent performances by Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, who won an Oscar last year for The Danish Girl, The Light Between Oceans would be nothing more than an ordinary, if somewhat graceful, summer melodrama that will eventually go unnoticed.