Review: Before Midnight (2013)

The other night, I finally got a chance to sit down and finish off Richard Linklater’s “Before” series with a viewing of Before Midnight.  This flick has all the elements of the two that came before it and, in the end, comes off just as strong.  But this movie doesn’t continue with the same fairy tale-like ambiance that the first two movies (particular the first) had.  It is a more realistic view of love as it ages, a sadder tale of two people who fell in love only to find out that they have to struggle to keep it alive.

Much like the two before it, Linklater conducts Before Midnight like one long conversation.  During the beginning he reintroduces the two main characters of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy), along with Jesse’s son and the couple’s twin daughters.  He lets the audience know how far they’ve come and what their lives are like in the present.  Relationship parameters are established between the two so as to define the way the rest of the movie develops.

The next series of conversations involves several other characters.  Jesse has been invited to stay at the home of a famous author that happens to enjoy his work and many others are present.  They sit around and speak of their own notions of love, each expressing a particular viewpoint with the many perspectives rebounding off of each other.  From the young couple that accepts as fact that they’ll break up at some point to the widowed older woman that is still very much in love with her dead husband, we see a comparison of generations.  And in the middle somewhere are Jesse and Celine.

Next, the couple heads to a hotel to enjoy some time alone, free of the kids.  From there all the stresses of their life unravel and each undergoes a meltdown of sorts.  It is here that we see the true nature of their relationships, both the relationship they have with each other as well as the one they have with themselves.  In the end, Linklater does as he has always done and leaves us with a story that is still in the process of being told.

I would rate this part of the trilogy as the second best, my favorite being Before Sunrise.  Of course, I’m a hopeless romantic and have no wish to see the harsher side of things, preferring instead to leave the story at the “will they or won’t they point”.  Still, the acting was excellent, the conversations deep and insightful as they always tend to be with Linklater’s films and the dialogue as natural as either of the previous two.  Linklater has once again crafted a masterpiece of a relationship movie, complete with lessons to be learned and no easy exits.

The folks at Rotten Tomatoes tend to agree (at least on the critics’ side of things), giving Before Midnight a strong 98/83%.  That’s a bit below the amazing 100/93% that Before Sunrise received, but then again most audiences are probably similar to myself, preferring the fairy tale rather than the truth of things.  Either way, if you enjoyed the first two movies, you must finish the trilogy.  And then let me know which of the three your favorite is.

Photo Credits -           

Before Midnight courtesy of lisarosman.com