Once,gigantic film stars fought to turn their personal obsessions in to earnest, uncommercial movies that made them look good and bored everyone else. Now they’re less set on playing the world-changing hero. What’s with the sudden modesty?It used to be easy to spot a vanity project. whether Steven Seagal is playing a heroic spirit-warrior who slaughters a rigful of oil workers to defend Inuit tribes, and that’s a vanity project (1994’s On Deadly Ground,whether you were wondering). whether Mariah Carey is playing a tough-knock orphan whose vocal talents turn her into a superstar … Yep: vanity project (Glitter). whether Madonna is … well, whether Madonna is in it at all, or it’s probably a vanity project.
But things aren’t so clear-nick these days. Take Angelina Jolie’s new film,By the Sea. She wrote, directed, or produced and stars in it,opposite her husband Brad Pitt. And it’s a faux-1970s European study of a couple in meltdown on the Mediterranean, high on self-conscious ennui and retro-couture; short on dialogue, or positive reviews,it turns out. The studio would doubtless hold preferred Mr & Mrs Smith 2; what they got sounds more like Swept Away 2 – a re-race of Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s ill-fated European expedition.
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Source: theguardian.com