Based on the bestselling novel (aff. link) of the same name by M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans (aff. link)is a compelling and humane romantic drama where you feel for all three main characters: Tom, Isabel, and Hannah.
Let’s go over the plot before I delve into conflicts in details and provide necessary spoilers. I strongly recommend watching the movie and/or reading the novel before continuing on to read the post.
As I’m a huge fan of Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Jane Eyre) and Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, A Royal Affair), I learned about the novel as I watched the trailer, and since Netflix has the movie, I couldn’t resist. I can’t recommend the movie enough; it is just a thoroughly beautiful and emotional experience. Full disclosure: I cried! I now joke that the movie is so effective that even Fassbender and Vikander couldn’t resist falling in love with each other after meeting on set. Yes, they are married now.
If you have seen the movie recently, you might want to skip right to the conflicts part. If you need your memory refreshed, the plot summary will do just that.
The Light Between Oceans Movie Detailed Plot Summary – with Spoilers
After Tom (Michael Fassbender) survives World War I, he doesn’t want much to do with people. So he happily takes the job as the lighthouse keeper on a small remote island where he will be the only one living. However, his plans of being by himself don’t work out when he meets Isabelle (Alicia Vikander).
They are both quite taken by each other and marry quickly. What follows is a blissfully happy marriage until Isabel suffers from two miscarriages. Isabelle’s depression is only distracted when a boat washes up ashore carrying a dead man and his newborn baby daughter. Isabelle convinces a reluctant Tom, who wants to do the right thing and report the incident, to let them keep it a secret and pass the baby as their own: After all, not even Isabelle’s parents know about her second miscarriage.
As Tom and Isabelle lovingly take care of the baby girl they named Lucy, Tom’s guilt intensifies as he sees a grieving mother/wife – Hannah (Rachel Weisz) at a memorial gravestone during their gathering for Lucy’s christening. When he reads the stone, he knows it’s Lucy’s real mother. Without Isabelle’s knowledge, he sends Hannah an anonymous note that says that her husband is dead, and the baby is alive, well, and loved. Hannah rushes to the police, but they have nothing to go on.
Tom and Isabelle continue to raise their daughter Lucy. When she is about four, Tom and Isabelle go to an event honoring the lighthouse. As “luck” would have it, it was built with the contributions of Hannah’s rich father. The three meet, Hannah barely keeping it together after meeting a healthy girl the same age her daughter would be. Her sister explains her situation to Tom and Isabelle, which makes Isabelle understand who Hannah is and what they have done.
When Tom tries to convince her to give their daughter to her real mother, Isabelle argues it is best not to shake their girl’s life. A guilt-ridden Tom leaves the toy Lucy had with her when she came on the boat, and this starts the chain of even more complicated events: Police arrest Tom, take the baby from Isabel and give her to Hannah. To protect Isabelle, Tom claims it was his idea. Unfortunately, police also want to accuse Tom of the murder of Hannah’s husband, and Isabel is too mad at her husband to back up his innocence. As Isabel lives with her parents and grieves the loss of Lucy, Hannah tries to cope with an impossible Lucy who misses the parents she knew, and Tom has to deal with both losing his beloved wife and child while being in jail.
When Hannah realizes that Lucy won’t adjust, she offers a deal to Isabel: Help Tom get convicted of murder and be sent away to prison for good. Then she will leave Lucy to Isabel for her child’s happiness. But after Isabel reads Tom’s letter, she can’t live with her own guilt any longer. She admits to her own part and reunites with Tom. This time Hannah isn’t that eager for both of them to rot in prison, for Lucy’s sake. And she knows what it is like to lose a child.
After some time Lucy adjusts to her biological mom and maternal grandfather.
Several decades later, Tom is by Isabel’s hospital bed. We don’t know how long they stayed in prison, if at all. We do know they don’t have kids.
Some time after Isabel’s death, a car drives up to their house. A young woman carrying her baby comes out. It’s Lucy, wanting to catch up with them and introduce her baby. They talk, Tom gives her a letter Isabel wrote, and Lucy asks if she can visit. Tom says he’d like that, they hug, and she leaves.
This post is a part of this blog’s Compelling Conflict series where I analyze the main conflicts in movies to help you (and me) write better fiction.
Conflicts:
The power of the film, in addition to the beautiful cinematography, the powerful direction and acting, comes from how much we root for each character, especially Tom.
While we understand Isabel’s action due to the loss and depression she suffers from, we are introduced to Hannah later in the story. And because Isabel never quite does the right thing when she should, and she only comes to Tom’s rescue at the latest minute, my favorite character is Tom. Here’s a guy who has never had anyone until he meets Isabel. And she turns out to be right about him: There is a light inside of him. He is a loving husband and father. He keeps his promises to Isabel from the beginning. Even though he is faced with impossible decisions, he tries to do the right thing.
But maybe that is because I’m not a mother. I’ve never wanted to be a mother. I’ve never been pregnant. I’ve never miscarried. I’ve never had to deal with losing a child, whether before they were born or after raising them for years. My feelings for Isabel are more hypothetical since I can only imagine what she is going through.
I’m also a stickler for doing the moral and ethical thing. I’m not so much against them raising the baby as their own, but Isabel never even allowing herself to think the baby might have a mother. Grandparents. Other family who might love and suffer the loss. Family who might have been barely consoling themselves with the fact that while they lost a child, they at least get to raise their child’s child. As horrible as her loss was, she never stopped to think about the mother, causing the same pain to someone else – the very pain she was trying to avoid.
Of course, by this logic, my second favorite character should be Hannah as she is a very unfortunate, sympathetic character. She loses a great husband she loved very much, for whom she defied her father to marry. She also loses her daughter, and now she has to get her daughter to love her – but she thinks Isabel is her mother.
But because you start the movie loving Isabel and feeling for her due to her losses, by the time you have met Hannah, you were hoping they wouldn’t be found out. So I can’t really choose between the two women as characters.
So let’s look at all this from a fiction-writing point of view:
Conflict 1: If you were desperate to have a child, lost two before they were born, and a baby – with a dad man without any indication she had anyone else – appeared in front of you, would you report the incident or claim the baby as your own?
It seems simple enough. You can try again. You can try to adopt. But as Isabel points out, who would let them? They live isolated on an island where there are no schools, hospitals or other people.
Maybe they could move. Maybe Tom could find another job. Maybe they could adopt then. But Isabel isn’t exactly able to think logically. Her depression clouds her judgment, and her sadness clouds Tom’s.
It may not be what you would have done, but then again, you don’t live in the 1920s where options are limited. Maybe people who want to be parents or are mothers will feel Isabel’s dilemma more. Even as someone who doesn’t wish to have kids now, I felt her pain. Solid acting, solid writing.
What would you do? Even if you ended up doing the right thing, wouldn’t you at least consider it? Because just as it was possible the baby would have close relatives, if not her mom, that would miss her, it was possible she would end up in an orphanage. Why let the kid go through all that when you could offer her a safe, loving home right here, right now?
I honestly don’t know what I would have done in the exact same situation. Would I have gone with Tom’s instinct? Or would my emotions get the better of me?
I can’t tell for sure, and that’s why it is such a great conflict. It is complicated, emotional, and the right thing may not be as obvious as it seems.
Conflict 2: You are Tom. You love your wife and your kid. You know your wife won’t give up her child. You now know there is a suffering mother out there because of your decisions and actions. What would you do?
Would you leave the anonymous note? Would you try harder to convince your wife? Would you confess to the woman?
It is hard being Isabel, but it sure ain’t easy being Tom either.
Conflict 3: You are Tom. Would you leave the toy in Hannah’s mailbox?
Remember the toy I mentioned in the plot summary? After Tom puts it in the box, the police put up a notice with a reward. One of Tom and Isabel’s friends recognizes it, and then the police go to their island.
Did Tom know the toy would lead to them directly? Did he want to get caught to save Hannah from more pain? Or was it only subconscious?
Without the toy, they wouldn’t have been caught.
Conflict 4: Would you try to keep your kid away from them if you were Hannah, or would you want more details on why and how they got to keep the baby?
While what Tom and Isabel did was wrong, it isn’t the same as kidnapping a child. The baby came with a dead guy. They should have reported it, but had the baby indeed been an orphan, they would have just given a poor baby a fighting chance at a good, loving life.
It doesn’t condone their actions, but they make for some decent mitigating circumstances.
What Hannah knew was this: Tom made his wife keep the baby. It is his fault. At this point, she doesn’t know Tom isn’t a violent man. She doesn’t know if what he could have done to “force” his wife to do what he wanted. The child was unharmed, healthy, and wanted her “mom,” meaning Isabel. Keeping the baby completely away from her was not the right thing to do. Granted, potentially all mothers would have done the same and probably rightly so.
But the kid was miserable for a long time. And she ran away. Not even to Isabel. So she could have been seriously hurt or worse.
What would you have done if you were Hannah?
Conflict 5: You are Isabel. Would you be mad at your husband for “betraying” you and losing you your child, and potentially your only chance to have a child? Would you blame him and refuse to see him and let him stay in jail for something you MADE him do?
This is a tough one. For Isabel, it is the ultimate betrayal. I’m guessing she would have been less furious if he had an affair or killed someone. Not that Tom would do that, but you get my point.
If he hadn’t sent the note, or at least the toy, no one would have known. He went behind her back, but he had tried to persuade her before and failed.
He was torn between his love and conscience, and he didn’t enjoy hurting either woman.
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The movie had 5 major, extremely compelling conflicts. What is your favorite
in the film? Who is your favorite character and why? And what do you imagine you’d have done in similar circumstances? Let me know in the comments.
