Will you watch with me?

By the Sea

(2015)

(SPOILERS) Angelina Jolie’s movie horribilis, the tale of a troubled marriage that preceded the actual break-up of a troubled marriage and was met with general critical disdain and public indifference. Is By the Sea the bust that has been widely reported? No, but it’s definitely on the soporific side, and illustrates that, while Jolie has some skill calling the shots, scribbling is not her forte.

Which isn’t to say the rocky relationship between Roland and Vanessa in ‘70s France (well, Malta’s island of Gozo but who’s being picky – perhaps she should have just gone to Manchester) lacks a resounding emotional substratum. Rather, it feels desperately thin and conflated, and there isn’t enough conviction to its central conceit to sustain it. Namely, that the pair conspire to distract from their own issues by peeping on the young, vibrant couple (Melanie Laurent’s Lea, Melvil Poupaud’s Francois) next door for their jollies (Jolies?), so firing up their dwindling passion.

There’s something rather masochistic about the alter ego Jolie (or, Jolie Pitt, not a credit built to last) has written herself into, a bitter, barren former dancing star intent on turning her husband away from her in whatever way she can. Not that he’s any saint, fond as he is of hitting the bottle as an escape from his domestic and authorial inadequacies. The one island of contemplative calm in this emotional storm is Niels Arestrup’s bar owner Michel, there to offer Roland sage advice on love, life and loss. It may just be Arestruo’s conviction, but these scenes are by far the best in the picture.

Although, Christian Berger (a sometime collaborator with Michael Hanke) ensures the naturally-lit vistas are very nice throughout. Sure, it’s like watching lustrous paint dry for much of the time, but it’s nevertheless impressively lustrous paint. Part of the problem is, there’s nothing believably compelling about Lea and Francois, nothing that sells the strife-ridden duo’s interest in the copulations and contemplations of these newly marrieds.

Laurent’s as lovely as always, but Poupaud is a charisma deficit with abs. The likes of De Palma and Hitchcock have impressed upon us the allure of voyeurism, but observing two who would more likely be the recipients of the casual voyeur engage in it themselves is unconvincing. On top of which, Jolie has crafted a piece that, over the course of two hours, turns in torturously concentric circles around Bradley’s voiced concern of “Am I wrong to think you’re trying to destroy us?”. Pitt’s okay, rocking a fine moustache. Angelina looks ever-more insectoid and brittle, a caricature of a Hollywood icon, like she’s angling for a remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

As to the resolution, it’s unclear where Roland and Vanessa stand, whether after fourteen years they will see things through for the duration, but they already have two years on their real world other halves. There’s much rumination in here, and Jolie may actually be more directorially suited to arthouse posing than the strident, overblown staging of Unbroken, but she needs to come up with material that’s less emotionally and philosophically arid if she’s going to spend so long waxing over it. The biggest mystery is how By the Sea cost $25m. Unless it all went on Illuminati snake sacrifices.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

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Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

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Brainstorm (1983)
(SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. That doesn’t mea…

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Meteor (1979)
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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
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(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

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Along with Pain & Gain and The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street might be viewed as the completion of a loose 2013 trilogy on the subject of success and excess; the American Dream gone awry. It’s the superior picture to its fellows, by turns enthralling, absurd, outrageous and hilarious. This is the fieriest, most deliriously vibrant picture from the director since the millennium turned. Nevertheless, stood in the company of Goodfellas, the Martin Scorsese film from which The Wolf of Wall Street consciously takes many of its cues, it is found wanting.

I was vaguely familiar with the title, not because I knew much about Jordan Belfort but because the script had been in development for such a long time (Ridley Scott was attached at one time). So part of the pleasure of the film is discovering how widely the story diverges from the Wall Street template. “The Wolf of Wall Street” suggests one who towers over the city like a behemoth, rather than a guy …

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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