Too much of everything

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Such a well done movie, great acting , direction, beautiful pictures and scenes

In the 70's, writer Roland (Brad Pitt) and former dancer Vanessa (Angelina Jolie) are in a tired marriage. They hope to rekindle their relationship and his writing in a small seaside town in the south of France. She finds a peep hole and obsesses over their next door neighbor especially Léa (Mélanie Laurent).Angelina Jolie continues to try to be a real filmmaker. She seems competent as a director. I don't see any outstanding style but her work is functional. The acting is tired although that's their characters. Her depression needs to be over-dramatized. When depression is depressed, it's depressing to watch. That's mostly in the writing and I don't think Jolie is a good writer. She may have fair concepts but her dialogue does not sing. The flow is stuck in mud. The plot could have gone somewhere compelling. She needs to collaborate with a better writer who could help her work. This has potential but Jolie lacks the skills to exploit.

Many critics and moviegoers thought that Angelina Jolie's "By the Sea" was at the apex of pittiful. I don't share that sentiment, but I am close. Jolie wrote and directed "By the Sea" about a couple who have been married for 14 years who travel to a France seacoast village to escape a recent tragedy. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie star as that married couple, Roland and Vanessa. Roland is a writer trying to recapture his scribe magic that gave him much acclaim for a past novel. Roland likes to roll a la Hemingway with plenty of alcoholic inspiration for his scribe. Vanessa is a frigid wife who is not very Jolie I mean jolly to those that she confronts. Roland and Vanessa then encounter a newlywed couple to the villa next to them, that would be Lea and Francois played respectively by Melanie Laurent and Melvil Poupad. Roland and Vanessa find a peephole that allows them to perverse I mean observe Lea and Francois' interactions. Do I need to say more how ridiculous this is. Sorry Angelina, but your direction and scribe of "By the Sea" was atrocious and absurd. Both Pitt and Jolie were not believable in their roles as Roland and Vanessa. One wondrous aspect of the film was the stunning cinematography by Christian Berger. He was the only Berger King of this movie. OK, just like Brad & Angelina, it is time for me to split. Sea you later! *** Average

Located in a remote resort in France (but shot on Gozo in Malta), this story is located in the 1970s, so no computers or smartphones and lots of smoking and drinking plus a veteran sport car.The focus is almost exclusively on a married couple who clearly have a very strained relationship for a reason which is only explained - and then too briefly - at the very end. The pacing is languid, even soporific, and there is only one person to blame: Angelina Jolie who wrote, directed and stars as an unsympathetic character.Her co-star as husband is her real-life partner at the time Brad Pitt. Sadly this film seems prophetic since Jolie and Pitt split up soon afterwards and both the movie and its afterward seem to echo "Eyes Wide Shut" with then husband and wife Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.