VIDEO Angelina Jolie directs herself crying at Brad Pitt in By the Sea drama

Well this is pretty weird.

Angelina Jolie's latest film is By the Sea. It's a drama set in France in the 1970s about a writer and his wife who just don't seem to be getting along, giving us a close up look of their tremulous hold on marriage. Pitt plays the writer, Jolie the wife and it all seems very intense.

Here's the first trailer.

Maybe it's a nice idea to get to spend time with your real-life husband on the set of your own movie but this kind of heavy material is always difficult to handle, even without adding in the real-life married element. No matter how the film turns out its going to cause certain publications to use it as a way to examine the Pitt's actual relationship.

That said, it's a very attractive production with the press notes suggesting Jolie has been influenced by European cinema on the 60s and 70s. The look is great and there's no doubt both Pitt and Jolie are capable of strong performances. And maybe this kind of smaller scale will be easier for the director to handle, after the somewhat disappointing Unbroken last year.

Or for fun you could take this is a time-travelling sequel to Mr and Mrs Smith - where we get to see the fallout of a life spent lying to your spouse...

The film also stars a range of Euro talent including Melanie Laurent, Niels Arestrup, Melvil Poupaud and Richard Bohringer. Expect some buzz around awards season.

By the Sea is in cinemas in the US on the 13th of November and out in Ireland and the UK on the 11th of December 2015.