Also written by its director, it is kind of film that people who claim to hate foreign films think of to explain why they hate foreign films. It's slow, ponderous, talky, and mostly about tiny details and minute character moments. It's such a loving recreation of the form that it occasionally flirts with self-parody. For those who know what they are getting into and actually crave this kind of cinematic experience, I heartily recommend it. But for anyone else, it will probably come off like a feature-length perfume commercial punctuated by outbursts of emotion and light kink. The film is a visual delight, taking place primarily in an out-of-the-way resort in 1970's France. Christian Berger's cinematography is downright splendid, and it can be argued that the film is mostly worth seeing as a visual treat even more than an acting one. By the Sea concerns a glamorous but deeply disconnected married couple, played of course by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Pitt. This couple, one a down-on-his-luck writer and the other a former dancer, have embarked on one of those “rediscover ourselves” vacations that just never really seem to work. It is clear there is some kind of trauma at hand, although the film makes Jolie-Pitt's disconcerting behavior generalized enough to presume that it is mainly a case of biological depression. In fact, the film errs towards the end by in-fact offering a concrete reason for this couple's turmoil, and I will admit that the picture is weaker for providing an explicit “origin story” for all we have witnessed. It's a more engaging film during its first ninety minutes when we don't quite know how much of this is merely a couple having fallen out of love along with potential mental illness in an era when such a thing was not as understood by the populace at large. Both leads offer old-school movie star dramatic turns, with Pitt looking like a variation on Ernest Hemingway and Jolie-Putt somewhat obviously laying on the exterior artifice to hide an ugly interior. Author : Shubham Verma Related Site Link: Aam Chur