Off-screen, few celebrity relationships appear more compatible than Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's marriage. On-screen, though, that will become a different story — this can be inferred, at least, in the sensational first trailer for Jolie's third directorial effort, By the Sea.
Writing and starring in the new movie in addition to filling the director's chair, Jolie's follow-up to last year's Unbroken is an intimate drama centered an American writer (Pitt) and his wife (Jolie) and their visit to 1970s France near a seaside resort, where complications in their marriage begin to unravel behind the backs of their company, including newlyweds (Melanie Laurent, Melvil Poupaud) and a handful of locals. The tagline suggests something akin to Before Midnight, but the trailer, swayed through Harry Nilson's "Perfect Day," suggests the final product may involve some uglier results in front of their elegant locales.
Only a handful of lines are muttered throughout this trailer, with shots of bathtubs, hats, ocean-liners, tears and tattered rooms dictating the action on display during the Nov. 13 release. Even in the 1:15 minutes of footage presented here, emotions are very high and hopefully not to melodramatic, as the drama can only become more intense once the actual film screens in theaters. With an uneven track record as a filmmaker thus far — with her debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, showing promise but her last movie displaying her shortcomings — this brief teaser suggests Jolie's best work could be to come and, as her first time acting under her own direction, it'll be interesting to see how she handles herself as a potential triple-threat.
Jolie recently stated she used some heavy "aggression" from her husband for the movie in a recent interview, and hopefully such emotions not only benefit the film more but serve as therapeutic to their marriage rather than tear it apart. With the couple once set to return to work beside one another in Africa — a Richard Leakey biopic initially to become Jolie's fourth time directing before Netflix's First They Killed My Father took that rank — such tensions are likely not extenuating deeply between the two in real life, even though the same can't be said for their new characters.
Check out the trailer, via iTunes, below:
Image courtesy of Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com
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