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, 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 no real backstory so the actors are left to create what comes across as unexplained moodiness, skulking, and foreboding music for the first half hour. What is said adds very little, already telegraphed by their facial expressions. Trite lines are repeated, like "until the job is done" referring to inclement weather, and "we have a job to do", which doesn't come as a surprise for the persevering viewer.