You know from the moment the steam train chuffs across the vast Western Australian landscape (actually New Zealand) accompanied by the sweeping strings of Alexandre Desplat’s score that you’re in the presence of an Adapted Best-Seller. In these accoutrements alone THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS doesn’t disappoint: the skies are huge, the storms monumental, the seas boiling. So much for the pathetic fallacy. As for the human drama played out against these spectacular backgrounds, forget it.

Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender) isn’t the first tortured soul in fiction to seek escape from a cruel world by turning to lighthouse-keeping. In the stage play and film THUNDER ROCK Michael Redgrave played an author so frustrated at nobody heeding his warnings about the coming of World War 2 that he retreated to the lighthouse of the title. Here the Great War has so traumatised Tom by what he’s seen happen to his mates in France that he applies to run the remote light on Janus Rock, named after the God with two faces (sound effect of Symbolism klaxon in background).

Isabel stays in the cottage below, tinkling the out-of-tune piano.

While being assessed for the job Tom meets Isabel Graysmark (Alicia Vikander), also affected by the war after losing two brothers. Boldly Isabel invites him on a picnic and before long Tom has a wife to help him chop wood and stroll along the shore — but not Tend the Light, a job Tom reserves for himself while Isabel stays in the cottage below, tinkling the out-of-tune piano. Which is where they both are when Isabel has a miscarriage, unable to make Tom hear during the raging storm outside. A simple cross on the clifftop marks the grave of the dead child, shortly followed by another after Isabel’s second miscarriage as she plays the (now newly-tuned) piano.

But then — a miracle! (One which would’ve made Thomas Hardy blush if he’d thought of it then looked at what he’d written the next morning.) A rowing boat is washed ashore containing a dead man and a live baby girl. Against Tom’s better judgement, Isabel insists they bury the man and keep the baby, bringing her up as their daughter Lucy, being the same age as their second dead child.

At Lucy’s christening back on the mainland, Tom sees the grieving Hannah Roennfeldt (Rachel Weisz) putting flowers on the headstone of her late husband Frank and baby Grace, both ‘Lost at Sea’. Local gossip reports that he’d taken the girl for safety, when chased out of town merely for being German. Stricken with guilt, Tom decides unilaterally to put on his other Janus face, with dire consequences for all concerned.

Director Cianfrance seems overcome by the decorous soapiness of the whole venture.

The biggest tragedy on display here is the waste of talent. Fassbender, Vikander and Weisz are all charismatic performers, but despite strenuous efforts they’re trying to breathe life into dead characters. Adapter/director Derek Cianfrance showed himself in MY BLUE VALENTINE and THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES to be a dab hand at orchestrating messy human relationships, but he seems overcome by the decorous soapiness of the whole venture. He doesn’t even follow the rules of glossy period drama, as once her appalling secret’s out Isabel is allowed to walk down the street unattacked. Where’s a decent movie lynch mob when you need one?

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSX-mpsVutQ