By the Sea (2015) – Drama/Romance

By the Sea (2015) is a quiet, aching meditation on love, loss, and the slow unraveling of a marriage. Written and directed by Angelina Jolie (credited as Angelina Jolie Pitt), the film stars Jolie herself alongside Brad Pitt in their second on-screen collaboration since Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) — but this time, the love story is far more fragile, intimate, and bruised.

Set in the 1970s, the film follows Vanessa (Jolie), a former dancer, and Roland (Pitt), a writer, as they retreat to a small, sun-drenched coastal village in France. They’re hoping to mend their marriage — or at least escape the silence that’s grown between them. Days pass in a blur of cigarettes, wine, and long, wordless stares. Then they discover a peephole in their hotel room wall, allowing them to secretly observe a young couple next door. What begins as voyeurism slowly becomes a mirror reflecting their own brokenness.

Jolie’s direction leans on atmosphere over dialogue. Sunlight bleeds through lace curtains, the sea crashes softly outside, and every gesture feels heavy with unsaid pain. Pitt gives a subdued, weary performance as a man clinging to love that’s slipping away, while Jolie’s Vanessa is brittle, beautiful, and haunted.

The film was shot in Malta, where the couple also lived during production, and much of its tone was inspired by European art cinema of the 1960s and ’70s — slow, sensual, and melancholy. Upon release, critics were divided: some found it indulgent, others praised its raw, vulnerable honesty.

More than a conventional romance, By the Sea is about the ghosts that linger in love — the way silence can be louder than shouting, and how two people can be so close yet oceans apart. It’s less a story to be watched than one to be felt, like waves quietly eroding a shore.