An incredibly promising actor/director pairing is in the works.  THR reports that Michael Fassbender is in talks to star in the M.L. Stedman adaptation The Light Between Oceans, which The Place Beyond the Pines helmer Derek Cianfrance will direct.  The story takes place on a remote Australian island following World War II and “follows a lighthouse keeper and his wife who are faced with a moral dilemma when a boat washes ashore with a dead man and an infant.  When they decide to raise the child as their own, the consequences are devastating.”

David Heyman (Gravity) is producing the DreamWorks drama, and it appears that the pic is firming up as a shoot in Australia is being eyed.  Fassbender most recently completed Macbeth and will also lead the upcoming Assassin’s Creed.  Of course, he’ll next be seen onscreen in X-Men: Days of Future Past.  Hit the jump for a synopsis of The Light Between Oceans.

Here’s a synopsis for M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans:

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss.

The Light Between Oceans is exquisite and unforgettable, a deeply moving novel. [Amazon]