The one movie Angelina Jolie was warned against making: “They asked us a few times if we were sure”
Having appeared in just seven live-action movies since 2011, three of which came in Disney-backed blockbusters Maleficent, its sequel Mistress of Evil, and Marvel’s comic book adaptation Eternals, it’s clear that Angelina Jolie has drastically – and intentionally – scaled back her onscreen workload in recent years.
The actor has instead diverted more focus and attention towards her family, her humanitarianism, and her burgeoning filmmaking career. Jolie helmed five features during that aforementioned period, and she only appeared on-camera in one of them.
As one of the biggest stars of the modern era, Jolie has used her platform as a director to focus attention on smaller, intimate stories that she holds close to her heart. Bosnia-set war drama In the Land of Blood and Honey, Cambodian historical thriller First They Killed My Father, and another war drama in Without Blood all fit the criteria.
The awards-baiting biopic Unbroken was her most overtly accessible and commercial effort behind the camera by far, while By the Sea was her most self-indulgent. On paper, it was an experimental independent drama ripped right from the arthouse, but the fact it starred Jolie opposite then-husband Brad Pitt – and was filmed during their honeymoon – added an extra layer of fascination and metatextuality.
Taking two A-listers who’d been a source of tabloid obsession ever since their relationship first went public and casting them in a film written, directed, and produced by Jolie as a couple struggling with the breakdown of their marriage that shot right after they’d actually gotten married in real life was a bold call and one that many people close to the couple actively questioned.
“A lot of friends of ours thought it was a really, they didn’t say a bad idea, but they asked us a few times if we were sure we wanted to do it,” she admitted. Understandably, those in their inner circles queried why Jolie and Pitt would get hitched and then immediately set out to shoot a fictional feature where they play two people questioning whether or not they want to be married anymore.
From the very beginning, the entire thing carried the stench of a vanity project, and that’s pretty much exactly what By the Sea turned out to be. The reception was muted, to say the least, after the film was greeted with little more than a shrug by critics and audiences, and it barely even recouped a third of its budget at the box office.
Knowing what happened in the years that followed, it’s hard to argue with Jolie’s friends, who wondered if it was a good idea to make the movie. It now exists as a fictitious snapshot of a dissolving marriage between two people who ended up going through an acrimonious – and very real – split of their own.
