Los Angeles Times by Rebecca Keegan

As a writer, Jolie Pitt is better at ideas than dialogue, much of which is leaden here. But the characters' behaviors feel true.

Time by Joe Neumaier

Jolie Pitt, in her third film as a director, infuses her original screenplay with a sparseness reminiscent of Hemingway’s tales of mislaid love and Michelangelo Antonioni’s cinematic alienation. But By the Sea is its own lovely creation, deadly serious about how grief divides, conquers and possibly unites.

Hitfix by Drew McWeeny

It sounds far sexier, just based on the synopsis, than it actually plays, though, so hopefully people aren't sold the wrong movie. For those in the mood for a throwback to the doomed romanticism of mid'60s art films, this feels like about as sincere an homage as anyone could produce.

The Playlist by Katie Walsh

Jolie Pitt’s insistence on creating a piece that reflects the harsh inner state of a person suffering to understand herself as a wife and as a woman in the world is commendable, and fascinating in her growth as a filmmaker.

The New Yorker by Richard Brody

It’s a romantic, erotic drama that’s told with an unusual blend of rapture and coldness, of overwhelming yearning and clinical detachment — and, above all, the movie has images that go far beyond the recording of performances and the framing of action in order to make a melancholy and mysterious visual music.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by Bilge Ebiri

You keep watching not just because she and Brad and the Mediterranean are beautiful, but also because small, surprising details start to take on great importance.

The New York Times by Manohla Dargis

At first luxurious blush it’s a jet-setting marital melodrama, one of those he-said, she-said (and wept) encounter sessions decked with designer shades, to-die-for digs and millionaire tears. More interestingly, the movie, which Ms. Jolie Pitt wrote and directed, is a knowing or at least a ticklishly amusing demonstration of celebrity and its relay of gazes from one of the most looked-at women in the world.

Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten

This movie won’t be for everyone; you’ll need to dive back into European arthouse cinema from the Sixties to find anything quite like it.

Slant Magazine by Christopher Gray

If it stumbles when it seeks our sympathy, it thrives when it's exploiting our fascination with the surface of things, and all that's unknowable underneath.

The Guardian by Nigel M Smith

By the Sea’s uncompromising nature is its most admirable asset. It’s a vanity project that’s difficult to love, but alluring to unpack.

Entertainment Weekly by Leah Greenblatt

Jolie Pitt, who also wrote and directed, shows a lot of skin (her own and her cast’s) without ever really getting under it. Misery doesn’t just love good-looking company; it needs an emotional center and a satisfying narrative arc, too.

Screen Daily by Tim Grierson

Roland and Vanessa simply aren’t sufficiently compelling to provoke us to fill in the blanks. Pitt brings his usual weathered charm, and Jolie Pitt makes her character’s all-consuming melancholy occasionally ravishing, but there’s not enough depth underneath.

Variety by Justin Chang

By the Sea always offers something to tickle the eye and ear, even as it leaves the heart and mind coolly unstirred.

Screen International by Tim Grierson

Roland and Vanessa simply aren’t sufficiently compelling to provoke us to fill in the blanks. Pitt brings his usual weathered charm, and Jolie Pitt makes her character’s all-consuming melancholy occasionally ravishing, but there’s not enough depth underneath.

The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy

There's no catharsis at the end from the journey taken, just relief that it's over.

Village Voice by Amy Nicholson

The film doesn't demonstrate belief in much of anything except that audiences must be so desperate for a peek into these stars' private lives that we'll invest energy in their mopey fictional counterparts, who can't even invest in themselves.

TheWrap by Alonso Duralde

If By the Sea weren’t so aggressively humorless, it might almost qualify as camp, so unsuccessful is its pursuit of weighty drama. Unintentional laughs are hard to come by here; instead, there are yawns aplenty.