A new film tells the tragic tale of lighthouse couple in Australia

What's a better bet than a Hollywood weepie based on a best-selling book? When the stars fall in love in real life while filming it.

That's the draw of The Light Between Oceans, a heart-wrenching tale based on M.L. Stedman's 2013 novel of the same name that stars Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender. It opens in US theaters on Friday.

The story, set in Australia in the 1920s, is the tragic tale of a lighthouse keeper (Fassbender) and his wife (Vikander), who have suffered two miscarriages when a baby in a boat washes ashore their remote island. They decide to raise the child as their own, until they meet the child's real mother years later.