3 stars (out of 5)
Angelina Jolie Pitt (the credit she uses here) wrote, directed and produced (with hubby Brad) this lush-looking, sometimes powerfully-played and eventually pretty frustrating vanity vehicle, partially filmed during the couple’s 2014 honeymoon and coming less than a year after Angie’s previous directorial effort, the awards-hungry Unbroken. Supposedly in the spirit of a Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor epic of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, it’s better-played, raunchier and more anguished, but there’s also that peering-into-the-personal-lives-of-a-pair-of-stars edge here too, as we’re left to wonder if this (in)famous couple do indeed argue like this in real life, and if that’s how they look when they try and have sex in the shower.
The Bertrands, Roland (Brad) and Vanessa (Angelina), are on holidays in what looks like Southern France (but was actually Malta), and when they stay at a quiet seaside town, it gradually becomes clear who they are, why they’re here, why Roland drinks and Vanessa’s hooked on pills, and what it is she’s so desperately trying not to talk about. Roland’s a semi-famous author who’s been long-blocked, and while he whiles away the summery hours trying to write and chatting to widower barman Michel (Niels Arestrup) and his few-words friend Patrice (Richard Bohringer), Vanessa remains in their hotel room agonising over… something.
Although it’s meant to be the ‘70s, and therefore a couple like this would probably be self-actualising and primal screaming and pop-psychologising their problems away, Roland and Vanessa do little but bicker at first, but when she becomes fascinated with the recently married couple in the next room, that all changes. François (Melvil Poupaud) and Lea (Mélanie Laurent, Brad’s co-star from Inglourious Basterds in a surprisingly revealing role) are heavily in love/lust, and voyeurism and envy become major themes as Vanessa vents her rage and pain about… something.
There’s much here to praise, from the beautiful scenery to the lovely conversations between Brad and Niels (always good) to the emotionally unflinching sequences between the toplining stars to Laurent and Poupaud’s convincingly horny humpings, and yet it all tends to irritate into the final act. However, Angelina’s biggest fans will surely enjoy it anyway, especially as she’s very strong at times and, it must be said, several key dramatic highlights take place while she’s in the bath.
I Wake Up Screening 