Love is not perfect for Jesse and
Celine. It lacks the romance that first sparked it when the pair met
in 1995's Before Sunrise, and it lacks the instinct that
reignited it during their not-so-random reunion in 2004's Before
Sunset. And in Before Midnight, the third of Richard
Linklater's exquisite trilogy, they're forced to question whether or
not it can survive the erosive power of time. No, love is not perfect
for Jesse and Celine. But it is real. And as in the two films that
preceded it, that realism is what makes Before Midnight such
an insightful and compelling drama.
For newcomers to this infrequently
updated series, viewing the first two movies isn't necessarily
required to appreciate the authentic conversation and naturalistic
performance which the trilogy has built as its defining
characteristic, but it does provide important context. The lovebirds
first spent a romantic night in Vienna after a chance encounter on a
train in 1994, but then fell out touch. They rendezvoused nine years
later in Paris, where Jesse gladly let a plane ticket back to America
burn a hole in his pocket, ultimately leaving behind an unhappy
marriage but beloved son so he could stay with his “soul mate”.
We catch up with Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) nine years after that fateful evening, now a couple with twin daughters and a slew of new anxieties and challenges that they probably never dreamed they'd have while they were making love beneath the stars 18 years ago. They're wrapping up a summer vacation in Greece's scenic Peloponnese, having dinner with friends before strolling the coastal cliffs to a romantic hotel room. Unfortunately, unlike their spontaneous affair in Vienna, this isn't some enchanted evening.
Seeds of dissension are already being
sewn early on in the day. Jesse, feeling guilty about his son growing
up in the States without a father, is tempted to uproot and move his
new family there. Celine, discouraged by failure in her
environmentalist efforts, is tempted to take a job she would have
sneezed at years earlier. And even though their armed-and-ready
senses of humour ensure that they're always able to laugh off the
disagreements, there's a lingering sense that those wits could turn
caustic.
His passive aggression clashes with her
paranoia in bouts of quarreling that become increasingly less
subversive as their night degenerates from sideways glares to heated
rows. Painful history is dredged up, accusations levied, and it
occurs to both of them that the love they shared may have slowly
disappeared like the setting sun. But at the end of the day –
literally the end of the day, as the title ominously implies – will
either of them be able to walk away from the other?
The key virtue to Before Midnight
is the honesty of its writing. Collaboratively work-shopped by
Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy, it dispassionately but perspicaciously
strips away the soul mate myth from the original romantic premise of
Before Sunrise and presents a worldly couple more genuinely
relatable to audiences who understand how relationships work in the
real world. As beautifully put by a wise old professor reminiscing
about his late wife at their dinner party, “We were always two
people, not one. And we preferred it that way.” Their work on the
page here is arguably even richer than their Oscar-nominated
screenplay for Before Sunset, and merits serious consideration
for not only another nomination, but possibly the win.
Indeed, Jesse and Celine have always
been two distinct personalities, and even though they click so well
together (to which their epic conversations can attest), it's clear
that they also have divergent wants and conflicting needs. In its
exploration of the sometimes tedious, sometimes unpleasant, but
always necessary give-and-take of meaningful partnerships, Before
Midnight is as much a movie about what it takes for true love to
endure in an increasingly pragmatic and disenchanted society, as it
is a movie about two middle-aged parents wondering what happened to
that long extinguished spark.
**** out of ****
