By the Sea (2015), R, ★

Angelina being consoled by Brad because her movie is a bore.

First off, I'm not a marriage counselor. But, this is a painful outlook of a marriage crumbling at the pitfalls of hysteria and devastation. However, we know that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are a great couple and also, separately, have great careers in the movies and also in charitable work. Brad Pitt has been on a roll with some recent movies like Fury, Moneyball and a small role in 12 Years a Slave. Angelina Jolie has not done much but she has had some solid work. Even though their reputation has been well-established since their pairing in the action-comedy, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the movie itself is so painful to watch that I had to take my eyes off of the dreariness that was very difficult to conceive. It was so difficult that it gave me a headache after is over and wanting to cry...and not in a good way.

This is a small story that takes a risk about an unhappy couple of Roland and Vanessa (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie-Pitt) who is vacationing on a French beach town that almost looks like a French perfume ad. It is during the Nixon administration that Roland is writing a book while Vanessa does not want to do anything at all and just sleep, drink and gaze like a perfect Victoria's Secret model. Every day, Vanessa wakes up and Roland heads to the bar not wanting to write anything. I would've scribbled or doodled.

Jolie still gazes and gets bored because she has nothing to. She is an ex-dancer. After gazing and not blinking in her advertising of a movie, she is out of character for two minutes as she dances in her seemingly underdressed attire. What the hell was that all about? To have some fun, she spies on the honeymooners (Melanie Laurent and Melvil Poupaud) next door. Even though Roland sees the hole in the wall, he figures that he and Vanessa dine on the floor watching the honeymooners have sex. It's dandy of a time for them as all the surrounding culture is glorious to gaze at and succumb them.

Angelina Jolie: CHANEL.

This is too perfect for it's own being that this movie is so morbid and lazy. The movie does not demonstrate the personal beliefs of a marriage at all because the character's marriage is entirely superficial that Jolie-Pitt, as a director and writer, does not want to entrance us into the development of a struggling or crippling marriage. The movie is just posture after posture with some Shakespearean tragedy playing in front of us. Let me make a footnote, a badly-make Shakespearean tragedy. There's no inspiration or they try too hard to focus aesthetically on the vibrant French surroundings and they are colorful.

Jolie-Pitt wanted to go in another direction in crafting an arthouse film with literal interpretation and metaphorical interpretation of voyeurism and a marriage of life support despite the nice decorum and the French paradise. However, it is a shallow misinterpretation of an isolated marriage that nobody wants to witness. I mean the characters are not interesting and the plot seems to revolve around Jolie-Pitt's character's laziness and why she is what she is. Jolie-Pitt and her husband try way too hard to accomplish something poetic and justified that it lingers too long and does not propel any energy whatsoever.

The only reason why I am giving this one star is because of the cinematography and focus of the framework in its setting and art design. There's nothing there on-screen that allows me to comprehend to be attached to the characters or think about why they are what they are and allow to be more than one-dimensional. It's a painfully, insipid, dull, reprehensible arthouse drama film. This movie should be punishment for couples who don't get along. Or, maybe some therapy.

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