The Lighthouse

A British drama; A story inspired by a true event in 1801 about two men in an isolated lighthouse on The Smalls, a forbidding cluster of basalt rocks 25 miles off the Welsh coast. It's glum and bleak, and the narrative leads to the macabre, but ultimately, it's a dour and disappointing drama. It's not difficult to create drama with a two-hander in a lighthouse, but the director makes hard work of it. The two characters are given a scant backstory, so the actors are left to give nuance, but they create what comes across as unexplained moodiness and skulking, which becomes tedious, and dialogue that adds very little and is telegraphed by their facial expressions. This is underscored by foreboding music that grates while it lasts a full half hour. Trite lines are repeated, like "until the job is done," referring to inclement weather, and "we have a job to do," which might seem ironic for a persevering viewer.

This really is a superbly cast and very well acted film, that psychologically grips us from imagining ourselves in the situations. I am shocked by the aggregate review; it ought to be much higher.

The film is based on a true story, but if you're looking for a light film this is not it.

It haunts so much that I still think of it 4 years after its release.

Atmospheric, moody, with the potential to be a great psychological thriller, but sadly degenerates into two men yelling at each other and drinking a seemingly inexhaustable supply of grog.

Without much back story for these dishevelled lighthouse keepers in a craggy outcrop set in 1801 it's hard to get emotionally invested in their plight when things start to go wrong. As it progressed I just wanted it to end. Plot holes appear very quickly and the timeline gets a little muddled. Initially they have a Kings banquet of food stores yet a mere month in they are down to rashuns. But always well stocked with grog... A brutal storm rages outside while inside the brooding characters quickly become bitter enemies fighting each other and their own inner demons. One uses his religion as solace while the other ridicules him constantly for using God as strength, an embittered atheist who becomes a very unlikeable character. And in a darkened atmosphere the descent into madness begins. And drags on. The night seems endless and here the movie descends into a frustrating mishmash of illusions and delusions and self loathing. And always the grog... It had potential to be good, and will always be compared to the 2019 version which was superior in most ways, so this will be forever be the lesser of the two 'Lighthouse' movies. I scored it mostly for the set and atmosphere. The weak story and unlikeable characters added little to this overly long movie for me.

This movie, while based on true events, is slow and methodical in it presentation. Yes it is about two lighthouse keepers stuck in a lighthouse 25 miles from land off the coast of Ireland. It basically portrays them going crazy due to months of isolation.

The Lighthouse: Based on a true story, the events occurred in 1801 when two keepers were cut off on an offshore Lighthouse for months by a freak storm. Atmosphere is everything in this film, the silence, then the quarrelling. Food runs low. One of the keepers dies but seems to haunt the other. Or is it just imagination/hallucinations? The surviving keeper already blames himself for the deaths of six sailors when he fell asleep and let the light go out at another lighthouse. Directed by Chris Crow and written by Paul Bryan. 7/10.