In the wake of World War I, people were defined by what they had lost. A generation of young men had been scorched from the earth, leaving a corresponding generation of young women desperate to find a match and begin the work of repopulating their communities. It’s helpful, when embarking into the sheer sadness of Derek Cianfrance’s The Light Between Oceans, to bear this pressure in mind. If women have more or less always been expected to be mothers, this job was considered all the more noble in an era when so many lives had been eradicated. Imagine the pressure on a daughter whose brothers are all dead.

Read the full review. by Marjorie Skinner