At The Sea Film Review: Drowning in Vanity

At The Sea boasts strong performances and compelling visuals, but its story lacks any emotional depth and wallows in its own self-obsession.

Unfortunately, At The Sea only has one of those things: even Amy Adams’ staggering lead performance can’t save this vapid, vain, story from tripping over itself at every hurdle.

At The Sea follows Laura (Adams), a functioning alcoholic who returns to her seaside home after a brief stint in rehab and struggles to reconnect with the family she left behind. Her children are drifting away from her, her husband is looking to sell her family home, and the dance company that she inherited from her late father is already looking to replace her executive position.  

It feels like there’s a very poignant, moving story hidden somewhere deep within Mundruczó’s latest film, but the screenplay seems unable to draw anything meaningful from this promising setup. It’s supposed to be a story about character development, with Laura learning the value of family and self-sacrifice as she overcomes her own demons – but the only lessons that Laura learns are the ones explicitly written out for her through the countless monologues where she spells her emotions out for the audience . There’s no nuance to the story: every minor change or realization that Laura comes to is written out blatantly in the dialogue, essentially telling the audience what the characters are feeling instead of letting them experience it.  

At The Sea is a film that knows exactly what it wants to say, but feels so concerned with its own prestigious aesthetics that it doesn’t know how to get this message across without dumbing it down for the viewer. Amy Adams does her best with an expectedly raw and vulnerable performance, but the character feels so one-dimensional that even she struggles to keep the story afloat. It often feels like the film’s screenplay and Mundruczó’s direction are at odds with each other; the former is very straightforward and leans into quiet, emotional moments, while the latter attempts to fly higher with more unconventional decisions and ultimately creates a strange disconnect between the two.

Mundruczó’s latest feature has a habit of using its characters merely as mouthpieces for the film’s deeper message instead of being full-fledged characters in themselves. Brett Goldstein and Dan Levy shine in their brief moments on-screen, but the characters literally only exist to push the story forward and spell things out to Laura that the film can’t give her autonomy to learn on her own. It makes for an incredibly frustrating viewing experience, and one that wastes some admittedly brilliant acting work.

Mundruczó’s keen eye for direction hasn’t gone anywhere, but this simply doesn’t feel like the right story for his glossy, prestigious style. It’s a film that tries to say a lot but ends up saying very little at all, and while individual scenes manage to convey the emotion, humor, and familial charm with great precision, the overall narrative winds up feeling unfortunately misguided and pointless by the end.

At the Sea premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 16-22, 2026. Read our Berlin Film Festival reviews and our list of 20 films to watch at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival!