By the Sea (2015)

Ummmmmm. The assumption would be that this film is about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's marriage, with some details changed to throw you off from thinking this is exactly about their marriage. Like Brad's character being a writer (l o fucking l!!!!), or Jolie's character being barren.

What I def believe about both of them is that Brad is a drunk, and Jolie pops pills. Is it all trashy to be speculating about how the characters in the movie's lives parallel to their own? Um, yes. But also I'm pretty sure this is what Jolie and her male husband want: for people to speculate. It's not even really interesting, though. Not even with them recently separating, it's like, this isn't 2005. Or even 2010. Oh wow, I know the year.

Anyway, this movie was...pretty dumb? It was like extra-lame? Oh, Vanessa can't have kids, so? She and her husband? Act like they used to be sewn together in a human centipede? And are still SHOOK from the experience?? When really they just can't have kids, and it's like, hello, ADOPTION?? Like it's weird Angelina Jolie of all people would even write something like this (did she? smh idk 2 lazy 2 check). Or, maybe this was done to mock people who don't adopt, or like an anti-adopters psa or some shit idk.

What likely happened was Angelina saw Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on TCM late one night, and she was all like, this is so me and Brad, and now we have By the Sea. I was def getting Who's Afraid teas all throughout the movie, with the not being able to have kids thing, and then bringing this ~fresh~ younger couple into the mix to "ruin" them. LIKE THIS WAS A STRAIGHT UP RIP-OFF OF WHO'S AFRAID? Or, cough, a ~homage~. 

I wouldn't even care if the movie was actually good. It is not. Which is disappointing, because I enjoy both Jolie and Pitt as actors, and a movie about their very high profile relationship, which is clearly a mess, should be really interesting, no? No. It's not. They just have regular ass problems, and I am entirely over it.

Obviously their exact real-life problems are not depicted in the film, however I am annoyed that the substitute problems given to Angelina and Brad's surrogates in the film were so lame. Like, oh. Roland wrote one good book and has sucked ever since. Congrats, you're Hank Moody.

Then Vanessa and her grief manifesting as intimacy issues, like all a woman has to snatch away is the puss and everything comes to a halt. It's like true, misogynistic, and empowering all in one? Never thee mind, for the main thing it is is tired. And then her spying on Lea and François through that hole in the wall. Tired. They're just some regular white people having regular white people sex but they have French accents, so I guess it's turnt? Bleh. And then Vanessa tryna smash François to ruin his and Lea's relationship. Lame, but let's be honest, François's French ass went on a vacation somewhere separate from his wife on his own honeymoon. He could probably happily ruin his relationship on his own, thanx. 

You know the one thing I liked? How Roland kept turning over Vanessa's glasses. It was kind of obvious and contrived, but the intimacy of it sort of overshadowed that, I think. To me, that was the realest thing here in this overall very sort of phony depiction of love and relationships. A movie made up of all sorts of ideas like the turning over of the sunglasses, would have been much better, instead of this sort of cowardly, shy ass Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? rehash. Brad & Ang, just set up a camera in your house and let it roll. That would have been worth something, By the Sea is not. I'd still recommend a watch obviously if you like Brad + Angie, which I do. Def don't expect anything good though, and you'll be fine! :')