Before Midnight

This is the third film in a trilogy.  If you didn't see the previous installments, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, you should really do yourself a favor and buy/rent/borrow them.  But don't feel like you can't watch Before Midnight because you missed out on the first two movies.  Those who have seen the first movies will probably have a larger connection to the characters, but the film is structured in such a way as to make even the uninitiated emotionally invested in the lives of these characters.

So what is Before Midnight?  The series follows the lives of an American man, Jesse, and a French woman, Celine.  During the first film, they meet and wander Vienna for one night falling in love knowing that they'll probably never see each other again.  In the second film, they meet again and spend a day rekindling the flame during one day in Paris.  But what if they had ended up together, instead of just having a few romantic hours every few years?  Before Midnight answers that question.  Jesse and Celine are parents to twins and are coping with aging and maintaining romance in a prolonged relationship.  They are in Greece this time and, like the other films, spend much of the runtime walking, talking, or walking and talking.  And it's captivating!

Writer/director Richard Linklater has many incredible films.  Slacker and Dazed & Confused are classics.  Bernie, Waking Life, and A Scanner Darkly are underseen masterworks.  Even School of Rock is one of the great children's movies of the 2000s.  But for my money, Linklater's Before trilogy is his crowning achievement.

The success of this series is only partially Linklater's.  He directs the hell out of this movie.  He engages in long, loving shots of Jesse and Celine.  His camera lingers on them as they pass through Greek ruins or drive through the countryside.  These intensely long takes are juxtaposed with fleeting images of casual, everyday beauty.  Before Midnight is a strong contender in my book for Best Director and Christos Voudouris' cinematography is among the best this year. 

But the real magic of these films lies in the natural and easy chemistry between stars Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke.  And that chemistry is better than ever in Before Midnight.  These are my favorite performances in the series.  The extra baggage that marriage and parenthood bring to the characters results in more nuanced performances. 

The bickering, veiled resentment, and explosive arguments of the married Jesse and Celine stand in stark contrast to the sweet romanticism of the first two movies.  That's not to say that Before Midnight is the portrait of an unhappy couple.  It's just the portrait of the highs and lows of a couple.  There are plenty of films that tackle only the lows (Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?, Revolutionary Road, and Blue Valentine) but this movie is more even-handed.  Jesse and Celine are a loving couple and that's why the fights hurt so much.  At least in Revolutionary Road, the couple hate each and are terrible people.  Watching love fade is hard and that makes us root for their reconciliation all the more.

Before Midnight is one of the best films I've seen this year.  It's sure to be on my Top 10 for 2013.  It's a nearly perfect film.  Interestingly, each of the films in the Before trilogy are spaced 9 years apart.  I can only hope that 2022 sees the release of another installment in the lives of Jesse and Celine.

9 out of 10