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.