After a tour of killing Jerrys in the Great War, bachelor Tom (Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender) returns to Australia, where he plans on settling down as a lighthouse keeper. Isabel (Oscar winner Alicia Vikander) is the town looker, making her, in accordance with Hollywood’s rule of keeping up surface appearances, the girl in the picture. Those who witnessed writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s debut feature Blue Valentine know how much he enjoys making his characters (and audiences) suffer. Not surprisingly, the steady torrents of anguish (and all that artificial light designed to bleach out the suffocating interior closeups) make these oceans difficult to access. After a pair of miscarriages, Isabel decides that fate has destined her to play mother to the little girl who washes up on shore in a rowboat. This is Cianfrance’s one chance to lighten the load, to unleash a little visual magic to boost the narrative contrivance, and all he can summon are handheld shots of crashing foam. Enter baby mama Hannah (Oscar winner Rachel Weisz), who quickly gets hip to the couple’s game. Isabel is such an irrational, unlikeable cur that at any minute, one expects Hannah to scream, “The dingbat stole my baby!” A melodramatic slog. (2016) — Scott Marks
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