The PItts: Why not to watch By the Sea

Angelina Jolie Pitt's By the Sea may not be the worst movie ever made but it sure could be a contender. It could also be a contender for vanity project of all time: written and directed by AJP and co-starring herself and hubby Brad. Would you imagine they produced this with their own $? I would say so, as it is inconceivable to me that any other production company would throw good money toward this project other than to retain the loyalty of 2 reliable box office stars. The story, set ca 1970 on the French Mediterranean (filmed on Malta, actually), is of  the Pitt couple about 15 years into a childless marriage, driving along the coast and stopping at a beautifully but isolated hotel. Reason give: "to get away from it all" (Brad). They move into their room and immediately rearrange the furniture, setting up a writing desk w/ typewriter. Ah, he's a writer! (A writer w/ no apparent concerns about money - but that's something stars of Pitt magnitude have no comprehension of anyway - they probably think the couple is living on the cheap because they're in a one-bedroom suite and they buy their own groceries.) Unfortunately, he can't seem to get anything going, and soon we see that he's really a drinker. And she's just morose and depressed (we learn along the way that she lost one, or maybe two, children in pregnancy). Two less appealing characters have seldom appeared together on screen. And Pitt, although he speaks French in the film, is not in the least convincing as a writer - Fitzgerald for one drank his way across the Riviera, but I'm sure that, from time to time, he may have said word one about writing or literature? These 2 have nothing to say; not to give away the entire plot, but here goes: a honeymoon couple moves into the adjoining room, and the Pitts get off by peering through a peephole and watching their neighbors have lots of sex. Trust me, it's not erotic - just ridiculous on numerous levels. At last, the Pitts have sex and things seem a little better and he begins to write again. This could actually be a parody of any of a # of serious European films of the 50s and 60s - maybe an Antonioni or a Polanski, tired couple sparked to life by encounter with youthful, sexual energy - if there were even a hint of wit or humor, or even of homage (or originality, for that matter). AJP, stay with acting; and Pitts, stay w/ producing - oddly enough, their company invested heavily in an unlikely success, Spotlight, so they do have some perspicacity about what makes a good move - the problems occur when egos obscure vision. A few true geniuses can write, star, and direct themselves: Welles, Renoir, Allen; but others go there only at their own risk.