By The Sea

I'm told that the Pitts, Brad and Angelina Jolie, made 'By The Sea' whilst on their honeymoon in France. This presumably accounts for Angelina being referred to throughout the credits as Angelina Jolie Pitt. The Pitts are heavily credited. Both act in and Co-Produce the film whilst Angelina also is credited as the Writer and Director. Both speak an impressive amount of French in the film although my lack of linguistic skills prevents me from assessing their fluency but it sounded pretty good to me and they seem to hold their own with their French co-stars.

Basically an American couple has come to a remote bayside hotel in France with the seeming intention of resolving a past unstated difficulty. The honeymooning couple in the adjoining suite provide an increasingly significant distraction.

I thought I had guessed the past difficulty early in the film but found I was wrong when all was revealed. The film is slow; interminable in fact and whilst the reveal proved surprising it also added to the level of tawdriness of the earlier scenes.

The general unpleasantness of the plot is partially balanced by the intriguing setting and locale but not sufficiently to redeem the hard work of sitting through this overlong exercise in slow motion activity.

★★