By the Sea / The Last Thing He Wanted

We watched the Brad Pitt / Angelina Jolie (Pitt) collaboration By the Sea. I continue to think that the weakest aspect of bad films is the screenplay, and this one exemplifies this. This film was written and directed by Jolie, filmed in Malta on the couple's honeymoon.

Even a bad film can be beautifully filmed. The actors will do ok, if they are pro actors. Usually the costumes and music will be ok.  In this film the scenery is beautiful, and the clothes are nice looking. The problem is the screenplay.

Pitt is an alcoholic writer in the 1960s, who is taking this trip with his wife to rekindle his writing and also the relationship.  For most of the film, the characters just sit around looking nice and brooding, drinking and smoking.  They begin to spy through a hole in the wall on a younger couple on their honeymoon. There is some doubt about what Jolie's trauma is, but eventually we find out she is "barren."  The problem is that in a traditional plot, the characters have to want something and take active steps to get it. That is the basis of plot. In a scene, an actor has to know what sh/e wants in order to be an effective actor. Even a weak screenplay can have strong motivations for the characters. Here they are like empty shells or stereotypes, like the alcoholic writer. Jolie is very good at looking pretty (for some tastes, I guess, not for me) and brooding, but she doesn't want anything. Neither does the Pitt character, or the honeymooners. The sordid peeping-tom behavior is sordid, and I don't object to it for that reason, but simply that it doesn't lead anywhere. There is a violent scene where Jolie is seducing the husband in the honeymooning couple, but it isn't very satisfying. The younger couple is shattered, and Brad and Angelina go back happily home.

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We also saw a bad movie based on a Joan Didion novel, The Last Thing He Wanted.  The plot is weak, once again. The main character is a journalist, and at first she wants to cover Central America and expose Reagan's corruption in the Contra era. Then she takes over an arms deal for her father and flies to Central America. Now her motivation is different, because she is selling arms to the Contras, and thus participating in this corruption. Then she sticks around in Central American almost getting killed many times, until she does get killed. There is no motivation for her to stay in Central America at this point, but she stays and makes some bewildering decisions. She stays at the house of this gay guy who is flamboyant and kind of interesting, but by then the movie is pretty much shot. Once again, you can have good acting and photography, because there are good craftspeople doing this, but you need a strong central core to the plot: a character who wants something.

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Of course, if you are Jim Jarmusch, then you can write a good movie with a passive protagonist.  It is much harder to do, but it can be done. For standard, non-avant-garde movies. you need motivation and action.  Even dialogue gets harder to get right without motivation, because then what are the characters doing or talking about.