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By Andrea Thompson
“By the Sea” would be an interesting film on its own terms, if only due to the deliciously scandalous personal lives of its two leads. And what transpired shortly after its release in 2015 only thickens the plot. The film not only stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as a married couple dealing with some serious issues, it was shot on Jolie and Pitt's honeymoon, with Angelina Jolie herself taking on the writing and directing duties. It was the first film the two acted in together since “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” in 2005, which sparked the beginning of a media frenzy around them after Brad Pitt left his wife Jennifer Aniston for Jolie, who gave birth to their first child in 2006.
But if it took one film to bring them together, this one seems to have driven them apart. Not only was “By the Sea” a box office bomb, making only $3.3 million of its $10 million budget back, Jolie and Pitt separated in 2016, then made it official by divorcing a few years after. Critics also almost universally panned the film, calling it a dull, plotless slog full of rich people problems in another gorgeous locale with some equally sumptuous visuals.
To be fair, there's some truth in this “By the Sea,” does have little plot to speak of, and it remains a mostly interior drama about the lives of some very wealthy people in a remote hotel in the south of France. It may take place in the 1970s, but the 60s vibes are strong with this one. Such familiarity doesn't seem to leave much of anything else to explore, but the real problem might just be how Jolie actually did succeed in subverting that familiarity in a fashion that didn't satisfy critics or audiences. Or maybe it was simply a matter of timing. “By the Sea” might have found more success if it had come out a year later, when it was once again not only finally acceptable to center a film around women's concerns, but for them to respond in a way deemed taboo for female characters: unlikably.
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Time also worked against “By the Sea” in another way. Its location and patterns may be evocative of 60s ennui, but there's little sense of a capsule meant to evoke a lost age of American optimism and prosperity. What does emerge is a beautiful fusion of modernity and timelessness. There's a dreamlike quality that springs not only from two almost impossibly beautiful, very sad people, but also their very real closeness, and the rhythms and routines they've built around each other. Familiarity hasn't bred contempt with Roland (Pitt) and Vanessa (Jolie), but there's an immediate sense that something's deeply wrong. Vanessa pulls away when Roland reaches out to her, emotionally and physically, which between that and his drinking problem has left him unable to write. At least he knows there really is no excuse for writer's block in such a breathtaking location, particularly when there's guys around like Michel (Niels Arestrup), the elderly owner of the local cafe, to muse about life and the deceased wife he still mourns and cherishes.
When Roland and Vanessa notice that a newlywed couple on their honeymoon has taken the room next to theirs, it initially appears as if they'll be the salt in their wounds. Vanessa finds her own method of coping though, like discovering she can spy on them through a hole in her wall, gazing at a happiness she clearly once experienced but now feels so far from. Her interest isn't overtly sexual at first; she's just as fascinated by the sweet nothings of their conversations as their bedroom activities, which she doesn't see until about an hour into the film.
For Roland, it's a chance to experience something with his wife again after he discovers the secret. Soon they begin to engage in a perverse kind of dance with their young counterparts by going on various public outings together, then eagerly spying to see how they react in private. Bizarrely, it seems to work for a time, with Roland and Vanessa becoming intimate again themselves, emotionally and physically. Their problems, however, are not going to be solved so easily, as Roland quickly realizes. He may be another struggling writer, but he's still a perceptive man who's mostly correct about his wife's flaws. In many ways, Vanessa does want to resist the possibility of happiness and play the victim, and lash out at their counterparts simply because she wants to punish people who can achieve what she cannot.
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Vanessa's repression and her very real oppression is also far more complicated than it first appears. Her husband's writing career may be floundering, but he still has the opportunity to continue. Vanessa, not so much. She was an exquisite dancer, but she aged out of a profession that probably disposes of women even quicker than the film industry. It's left Vanessa floundering, not just due to the abrupt end of her career despite her talents. She's also literally unable to produce new life in the next stage of her own, just as she finds herself so much more vulnerable. Being denied motherhood can be a devastating crux in itself, but what Vanessa is truly struggling with is the loss of her ability to create on every front.
Given this context, it's understandable why Vanessa is defined as much by her anger as her sadness. True, she may dramatically stay out in the rain, only to return home and tell her husband, “Now my outsides match my insides,” but the rage she's repressing and denying is an equally defining force. Complexity and unlikability in a female character can be a heavy burden for a film, but Roland does his share of damage to the concept of masculinity too. He's not the flamboyant, flailing writer who has to be reined in by his sadly understanding wife, he's the more moral of the two, quickly realizing that they should stop the sick game they're playing and just “stop being such assholes” in general.
Easy categorization, in other words, isn't something that can be applied to either of them. Neither a dreamboat nor a doormat, Roland is very aware of his wife's flaws and the reasoning behind her actions. It simply doesn't keep him from loving her, despite everything. It's a setup that doesn't lend itself to easy moral conclusions, and sure enough, “By the Sea” keeps them to a minimum. That these two deserve each other by the end is clear enough, but it's truly for better and for worse.
