But this Romeo-and-Juliet story about the love affair between a Bosnian Serb officer and the Muslim woman who becomes his prisoner was written and directed by Angelina Jolie, and there’s no question that name makes a prodigious difference. I assume Jolie knows that her fame allowed her to get the movie made (at a budget of $10 million, it’s modest by American standards but very expensive for Eastern Europe) and has attracted a curious international audience that wouldn’t otherwise care. Well, let’s give her credit: Now that she’s got people’s attention, she gives them an eyeful. “In the Land of Blood and Honey” has some moments of first-movie clumsiness, but it’s soberly and elegantly shot (by Hollywood veteran Dean Semler) and paints a harrowing portrait of the massacres, rape camps and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces and others during that Clinton-era conflict.

As to the debates about whether Jolie depicts the Balkan war in a hopelessly biased or naive fashion, let’s leave it at this: Most analysts agree that the majority of atrocities were committed by Serbian forces, but that’s a long way from insisting that everybody else was as innocent as the driven snow. On the rare occasions we see Bosnian fighters in “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” they come off as a likable ragtag band, while the better-armed and better-organized Serb forces are presented as preening and sadistic fascists, continually drunk and singing nationalistic songs. So, yeah, she’s playing favorites, and drawing on cinematic and historical archetypes that go back to movies about the French Resistance and the Nazis, or about the Spanish Civil War. But she’s not exactly concealing her agenda: The Serbs killed a lot of Muslim men and raped a lot of Muslim women, and the West declined to intervene until the worst was over. She thinks that was screwed up and evil all the way around.

That said, arguably the most complicated and interesting character in “In the Land of Blood and Honey” is the almost Shakespearean Danijel (Goran Kostic), a one-time Yugoslav policeman whose imposing father, Nebojsa (Rade Serbedzija), is a general in the rebel army trying to carve a “greater Serbia” out of the imploding Bosnian republic. As the war begins, Danijel is beginning a romance with Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), a dark-haired Muslim beauty he meets in a Sarajevo nightclub, just before it’s destroyed in a bombing. By the time he meets Ajla again, months later, Danijel has become a captain in his father’s officer corps — and she’s part of the spoils of war, in a group of women seized for sexual and menial servitude after the men in their housing complex have been taken away and shot. Danijel claims not to support his dad’s anti-Muslim bigotry or ultra-nationalist politics, and we don’t see him participate in atrocities. But it’s also not like he stops them from occurring, and his argument that the war is merely a messy exercise in realpolitik by other means does not excuse its tactics. “It’s murder for political reasons,” Ajla tells him. “But it’s still murder.”

Kostic, a Bosnian actor who has done quite a bit of British film and TV, and the Sarajevo-born beauty Marjanovic make a combustible screen couple, and Jolie knows it. Despite the film’s generally somber tone, there’s more than a hint of “Night Porter”-style perversity to their relationship, which at different times is platonic, therapeutic and highly erotic. Ajla has two different stints in Danijel’s personal custody, and the benefits for both of them — above and beyond the hot sex — are ambiguous but troubling. They’re undeniably drawn to each other, and may be in love — but that whole romantic ideal is problematic, in this context. Ajla is living in a privileged position under a Serbian officer’s care, when many other Bosnian women are being raped and killed, and Danijel gets to feel like he hasn’t lost his basic humanity and decency (when, arguably, he has). If you’re looking for a love story with a happy ending, by the way, I suggest “New Year’s Eve” instead.

Those scenes, when Jolie hints at a dark psychosexual dynamic beneath the drama but doesn’t lay it out, are arguably the strongest in the film, although she also includes some harrowing action sequences depicting the siege of Sarajevo and other wartime events. (“In the Land of Blood and Honey” was entirely shot in Hungary; even in peacetime, this story wouldn’t go down smoothly in Bosnia.) There’s also a fair amount of clunky exposition, when Serbian officers or TV commentators have to provide running updates: What did Madeleine Albright tell the United Nations? How much territory do the Serbs control? How many people died at Srebrenica? When will the NATO bombing start? As I said earlier, nearly the entire cast consists of Bosnians, Serbs or Croats, and while Jolie shot a version with English dialogue, at this point only the subtitled, Bosnian-language version will be released. Serbedzija, a legendary Croatian actor whose Western career stretches from “Eyes Wide Shut” to “Batman Begins” to a villainous season in TV’s “24,” makes a juicy meal of his role as Danijel’s abusive, sentimental and bloodthirsty father.

If Angelina Jolie is trying to remind us that the Western world dithered while an apparently modern European nation sank into rape, murder and chaos — and that Bill Clinton and his foreign-policy officials deserve much of the blame — she does a good job. Of course the guilt over that negligence was used by so-called liberals like Paul Berman and the late Christopher Hitchens to justify the invasion of Iraq, and that may not have been the right answer either. My sense is that while Jolie intends “In the Land of Blood and Honey” to deliver a moral lesson, it’s really a story about two people who hope that love will deliver them from an evil situation, when love can’t actually do that.

“In the Land of Blood and Honey” opens this week in New York and Los Angeles, with wider release to follow.

“And, yes, the bitter irony — Aniston’s husband Brad Pitt infamously left her for Angelina Jolie six years ago after falling in love on set — is lost on no one. ‘It’s amazing she would go for an attached guy after what happened to her’ (says Biven insider).”

I’m sorry: I’m all for female solidarity and not stealing another lady’s man, but how is this “amazing”? Jennifer got a divorce six years ago, and her only real statement when Angelina told the media how she fell in love with Brad while filming “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” (and while Brad was still married to Jen) was that it was “not cool.” While I’m sure the divorce devastated Jennifer, it was the tabloids that have kept her in the role of the perpetual victim for over half a decade, as the poor woman who can’t settle down and have kids because her husband ran off with that harlot/humanitarian. In reality, I doubt Aniston felt half as much self-pity as the average American did for her. But Theroux wasn’t even married and the difference between “wife” and “girlfriend” is still a big commitment leap, and the term “homewrecker” is usually reserved for someone who breaks up a marriage or a family.

As someone who has been on both sides of this homewrecking scenario — who watched her parents’ marriage dissolve because of infidelity and later went on to sleep with a married man herself – I feel for both Aniston and Bivens. Yes, mainly for Bivens, because she just got dumped after a decade and a half for a much more famous woman. And unlike Aniston in 2005, no one is going to be keeping tabs on the spurned lover’s various boyfriends for the next several years, wondering if she’ll ever have a baby with John Mayer, or Vince Vaughn. If Bivens later finds herself seeing a non-single guy in any capacity, the papers won’t ask if she should “know better than to come between a man and his longtime love” like they are doing with Aniston.

In that way, Bevin is probably luckier than Aniston, who just lost the nation’s support as the hottest spinster in America. Then again, maybe after six years of being known as the “ex-Mrs Brad Pitt,” an image change is just what the doctor ordered.

Few among us get to build a “team” of individual teachers for our kids or sprint off to Cannes or sleep with Brad Pitt — though I keep looking for that job posting on Craigslist. And not every mother can say, with the voice of experience, “We love safari adventures and living in tents, we love to go to Asia. Really any place new, something beautiful that’s also physical.” For many more of us, the concept of going “any place new” means driving all over town looking for that Dora the Explorer doll your kid’s been screaming for. No wonder then that Jolie’s comments inspired a fair amount of Internet eye rolling, from commenters who noted that it’s “easy to say when your children will never NEED a job. Such arrogance. Sorry, but my kid isn’t going to earn a living traveling and playing guitar,” and more pithily, “Why do people buy this crap from these celebrity idiots?”

But Jolie’s dilemma is a surprisingly familiar one — how do you fit your own unique, amazing, curious children into our increasingly rigid, test-oriented modern system?  How do you trust that learning isn’t just a matter of sitting quietly and filling out little circles? And when Jolie says, “I wish there was a book every parent could read that tells you how to navigate through the school system, and how to tailor the education system for your children and their interests,” she sounds a hell of a lot like most of the moms at my local playground.

All kids are born learners –but very few conform to the narrow academic ideal that standardization breeds. One size fits all models fit almost nobody. But what do you do with your kids if you’re not oh, I don’t know, an international superstar? What then, Angelina Jolie? Do have to spend a month in a yurt on Kona to give your kids the kind of education that doesn’t come from test prep?

Any involved parent knows there are teachable moments to be had everywhere –in all the “bunny chasing and melon smashing” available right outside our doors, right inside our homes, and in the crucial opportunities for advocacy as near as the local Department of Ed. And even though she’s rich and famous and beautiful, Jolie’s opinion on education, that “We as parents need to think about how we can shake it up and make it better,” is a valuable lesson. School is a just a place. But learning is a lifetime adventure.

But there is such a thing as getting too deep during your Q & A sessions, as was evidenced by yesterday’s “Kung Fu Panda 2″ press junket. Since we can all learn from our mistakes, here’s a guide to what not to ask during a Cannes interview.

1. Stay away from hot political issues during when interviewing people about a cartoon:

Don’t be the journalist who took the opportunity during “Kung Fu Panda 2″ to ask Angelina Jolie how she felt about bin Laden’s death.

“I’m here in the context of Kung Fu Panda; I’d rather not get into such a heavy issue,” said the actress, who also fielded questions about China, women, tigers, and motherhood.

2. It’s not a Miss America pageant:

So asking Dustin Hoffman (who plays Master Shifu) where he finds his inner peace just proves to the class that you are trying too hard. Though he did give a great response: “I’ve never been so at peace as I am at this moment, being this famous, in front of all these cameras, and sitting next to Angelina.”

3. Asking pretentious questions makes you look like an idiot:

What kind of answer did you think Jack Black was going to give when you threw him a query about whether or not pandas actually suffer from existential crises? In his fairness, Black gave an equally ridiculous reply:

“Those weak moments, while gnawing on a bamboo shoot, do they think, What is life all about? What is the point? In this meaningless universe that goes on forever…Maybe all life-forms have fleeting moments of existentiality. You can figure that out.

Then he sang Bobby McFerrin’s “Blackbird.”

At that point, everyone in the room had officially put too much thought into “Kung Fu Panda.”

4. Don’t corner the famous people:

When the reporters from Vulture tried to pull Dustin Hoffman aside after the panel to get his thoughts on Cannes, the Oscar winner’s desire to dash lead to another bizarre response.

“It’s plastic paradise,” said the actor, “When there’s no festival, it’s paradise. When there’s a festival, it’s plastic paradise.”

Then he ran away, apparently to go take another hit of the brown acid.

5. Try not to be totally offensive:

For example, if you are at a conference for a film about a talking animals, it’s not in your best interest to ask how the actors feel about it showcasing “best-known roles.” Right, because despite a career that includes “The Graduate,” “Tootsie,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Rain Man” and “All the President’s Men,” Hoffman’s legacy will definitely be marked by his performance as a talking red panda. Well, either that or Ben Stiller’s dad in “Meet the Fockers.”

It can be difficult to discern a pattern in the decisions made by movie stars, since so many moving parts are involved — agents, managers, publicists, family members, massage therapists and so on. But by her own account Jolie is using her acting salary to support her true métier as globetrotting humanitarian and celebrity mom, and she certainly seems more engaged by that second career. At least since hooking up with Brad Pitt six years ago on the set of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” Jolie has vacillated between tepid dramatic roles in would-be Oscar winners (Robert De Niro’s CIA drama “The Good Shepherd” also belongs in that category) and other stuff that was presumably unchallenging and paid well, including voiceover roles in “Beowulf” and “Kung Fu Panda.” Other than the forgettable actioner “Wanted” in 2008, she has avoided roles that played to her galactic-scale sex appeal and glamour-girl reputation.

During our gabfest, one of my colleagues suggested that Angie needed to take on slinky, sophisticated seductress roles in adult-oriented thrillers long on bling and sexy locations. I believe the phrase “a ‘Thomas Crown Affair’ sort of thing” was used, although she might just as well have said “a ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’ sort of thing.” Well, lo and behold: The next evening I went to see “The Tourist,” in which Jolie appears in fire-engine lipstick, truly astounding mascara and a collection of eye-popping designer gowns, playing opposite Johnny Depp in a mistaken-identity espionage drama set in Venice. German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (who made the foreign-language Oscar winner “The Lives of Others”) delivers the goods on an eye-candy level, providing at least half a dozen va-va-voom shots in which Jolie, with eyes blazing, cascading hair and bared shoulders, parts a crowd like Moses parting the waters, while clad in a dress that cost twice as much as my car.

You could say that Jolie has been working on her craft, by which I mean that she manages a mostly OK English accent as international woman of mystery Elise Ward, and also speaks a full sentence in passable French. (Famously, she managed to play Mariane Pearl, who is actually French, without uttering a word in that language.) More to the point, Jolie at 35 now has the worldly grace and demeanor to pull off this kind of clotheshorse-fantasy character without looking like a schoolgirl playing dress-up. But after I tell you that she looks smashing and that Donnersmarck, cinematographer John Seale and their production team create picture-postcard images of several ravishing Venetian locations, there isn’t a lot left to say about “The Tourist.”

This is a pale simulacrum of those high-style travel-porn thrillers of the ’60s and ’70s, which only serves to remind us that those aren’t as easy to pull off as they look, and also that maybe they weren’t so great in the first place. Plot comes in a distant second after pretty pictures here, and what there is of it (adapted by Donnersmarck, Christopher McQuarrie and Julian Fellowes from a 2005 French thriller, “Anthony Zimmer”) lumbers awkwardly along, toward a blindingly obvious last-act switcheroo. Following instructions from her absent lover, an internationally wanted whiz-kid criminal named Alexander Pierce, Elise boards a train from Paris to Venice and hits on a stranger who vaguely resembles Pierce, but who turns out to be a tongue-tied math teacher from Wisconsin named Frank Tupelo (Depp). Interpol at first assumes this really is Pierce, after some expensive Lisbeth Salander-style plastic surgery — and so does Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff), the thuggish tycoon from whom Pierce stole billions.

Depp is quite enjoyable as the slightly plump, slightly shaggy Frank, who winds up shacked up with an unbelievably beautiful woman in Venice’s fanciest hotel and being variously harried by British secret agents, Italian cops and Russian mobsters. “May I pay you a compliment?” he purrs to her on a balcony overlooking the Lido. “You are the least down-to-earth person I have ever met.” The largely British cast is better than it needs to be: Along with Berkoff, a semi-legendary figure in London theater, supporting roles are filled by Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton and Rufus Sewell. But the movie’s action scenes are mild, slow and dull — Donnersmarck has no feeling for that idiom — and what’s really going on beneath the confusion is a) not that hard to figure out; b) not especially fun or interesting and c) thoroughly ridiculous.

Angelina Jolie isn’t the big problem with “The Tourist” — she is its primary decorative element, and probably the best reason to see it. Maybe my colleague was right in suggesting that this kind of movie is right for her, but the evidence here makes me wonder whether this kind of movie is worth doing at all. With all its balls and gowns and posh interiors and promiscuous Old World bling, “The Tourist” is tame and timid, suffused with nostalgia for something that was fake in the first place, old-fashioned but lacking any trace of “Ocean’s Eleven”-style retro hipness. Sure, it vaguely resembles a movie Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn could have made — a bad one, now forgotten except by a coterie of aging devotees, who yearn for a piss-elegant lost world of guys in tuxes, women in dresses and dialogue without cuss words. If that’s Angelina Jolie’s demographic, heaven help her.