From time to time, we get to watch pretentious arthouse pieces—and By the Sea is no exception. Angelina Jolie Pitt's vanity project as writer, director, and star of this so-called marital drama opposite her husband Brad Pitt subjects us to agonizingly beautiful visuals and an agonizingly empty experience. It's just like stepping into a Vogue fashion shoot in a French Mediterranean resort.
Jolie Pitt pens an uninspired story set in the early '70s, about a wealthy New York couple who goes on a retreat in a French seaside hotel in hopes that the alcoholic writer husband, Roland (Brad Pitt), will be inspired to write a follow-up to his famous debut novel. While Roland pretends to write in the seaside bar, the depressive wife, Vanessa (Angelina Jolie Pitt), cocoons herself in pills, wine, and magazines. Or sightseeing. Or allowing herself to be catatonic, with her pretty tears flowing down her perfectly sculpted cheeks.
The couple is clearly unhappy—or maybe just unbearably bored. But because Facebook hasn't been invented yet, they soon find something similarly addictive and voyeuristic: looking through a peephole to the adjacent hotel room, living vicariously through the occupants: young love-making newlyweds (Melvil Poupaud and Mélanie Laurent).
The movie is almost silent, but the minimal dialogue doesn't feel like it was done on purpose, but an excuse for lack of ideas. Yes, Roland speaks French from time to time just to prove to us that, well, Brad Pitt can.
Quiet movies are okay as long as tension, agony, drama are felt, but By The Sea does not evoke the slightest emotion. Because there's nothing really here. It transcends dullness and takes us to a strangely dreamy but detached territory. The clothes, the picturesque French seaside village could easily be a collection of Jolie Pitt's Instagram photos and it wouldn't make a difference.
By the Sea is shamelessly narcissistic. A self-important pseudo-European film that's as empty as my wallet. Brace yourself for the corny ending.
Out November 18, 2015, exclusively in Ayala Malls Cinemas
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