Watching 'By the Sea' After the Jolie-Pitt Split: Scenes From an Imperfect Marriage

Now that their separation is official, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s relationship seems neatly bookended by the two films they made together, ten years apart. The first, 2005’sMr. and Mrs. Smith, was a sexy spy romp that proved wildly popular, not least of all because fans wanted to determine for themselves whether Pitt’s chemistry with Jolie was the catalyst for his split from Jennifer Aniston. A decade later, after expanding their family to include six children and formally tying the knot, Pitt and Jolie reunited on screen in 2015’s By the Sea, a quiet drama about a couple in crisis. Written and directed by Jolieshortly after the wedding, the film met with mostly poor reviews and generated little interest at the box office. Of course, it seems a lot more interesting in retrospect, knowing that the director’s marriage was not as solid as she claimed, constantly, in interviews promoting the film. (“At the end [of shooting] we came out of it thinking, ‘This was the best honeymoon,’” she told The Telegraph.) The idea that Jolie, a master of public-image manipulation, might have hidden clues to her own crumbling marriage in By the Sea is patently ridiculous. And yet, there’s no denying this fact: Of all the movies she could have made on her honeymoon, she chose to make one about two artists, played by herself and her actual partner, confronting a deep malignancy in their marriage. Future Brangelina scholars will no doubt dedicate entire tomes to Jolie’s decision — so, to kick off the conversation, let’s take a look at how By the Sea plays in light of the Jolie-Pitts’ divorce news.

Related: ‘By the Sea’: Why Star Power Couldn’t Save It at the Box Office

By the Sea is a flawed, though exquisitely shot, character study of an American couple — Vanessa, a former ballet dancer battling depression, and Roland, a famous novelist with writer’s block — who try to escape their enmeshed midlife crisis with a seaside vacation to France. (The film is set in the 1970s, but beyond explaining Jolie’s awful wigs and the absence of cell phones, this is irrelevant.) For at least the first half hour, By the Sea feels like a strange theatrical exercise in which two people who have never seen actual humans attempt to act like them. Jolie enters the picture wearing a comically large hat and speaks her first line — “I smell fish” — into the middle distance, like a drag queen paying homage to a Joan Crawford film. At the hotel, Vanessa drapes herself over furniture in a gauzy black nightgown, striking stiff poses meant to convey despair; Roland, supposedly a wordsmith, says lines that sound like poorly translated subtitles (“You resist happiness,” he tells Vanessa).

The film gets considerably more compelling as Vanessa and Roland become obsessed with their hotel neighbors, French newlyweds Lea (Melanie Laurent) and Francois (Melvil Poupaud). Through a peephole they discover in their own room, the Americans secretly spy on the younger couple. As their voyeurism becomes more insatiable, Vanessa and Roland make overtures of friendship, careful to keep their motives hidden — for example, getting Lea and Francois drunk at the local pub, then hurrying back to their peephole to spy on the aftermath.

Related: ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’: The Movie That Launched America’s Obsession with Brangelina

Here’s where it becomes difficult not to speculate about the stars’ actual marriage. For the past 12 years, Brad and Angelina have been the people on the other side of the peephole: the beautiful couple that the rest of us spy on, obsess over, and envy. But now, that glowing image they’ve projected over the past decade — two effortlessly perfect people, made for one another — turns out in the end to be a mirage.

‘By the Sea’: Watch the trailer:

This is where the movie’s peephole dwellers, Francois and Lea, differ from the real-life Brad and Angelina. Much to the distress of Vanessa and Roland, the French couple next door is exactly the same in private as they are in public. Through the peephole, it becomes clear that they are truly in love, that their life together is all sex and laughter. And the longer that Pitt and Jolie’s characters watch, the more envious they become, and the more their own marriage feels like a lie.

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