Before Midnight Review

We are often torn between our idealism and the reality of our lives.  We have high hopes, we dream big, but often life is some combination of good and bad.  For Celine and Jesse, the central couple of Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, their ideal night spent in Vienna in 1995’s Before Sunrise and their reconnection in 2004’s Before Sunset has been shaken from the reality of actually being a couple.  It ultimately yields an installment different from the first two, but still fits into a story that could take this indie franchise and make it sustainable for the future.

We join them nine years after their reunion, married with twin girls on vacation in Greece.  They also have jobs, with Jesse being a successful writer and Celine contemplating her next career move.  During this trip we’re privy to many conversations about life and relationships as expected for a Before film, only this one has more conflict to it.  There’s some real stakes in this film.  The filmmakers don’t forget that Jesse has an ex-wife and son who live in America while Celine and Jesse live in Paris with their kids, a fact that causes a lot of tension.  Also, being together has all but confirmed in the eyes of Jesse’s readers that Celine is the woman he gained notoriety writing personal details about.  By the end of the first movie as far as they knew they’d never see each other again.  They had this perfect connection, but eventually that initial honeymoon phase would have to end.  It can be tough to see this with the lighter tones of the first two as they fell in love and reconnected, but it’s honest and extremely well done.

While there’s plenty of conversation that’s reminiscent of things you’d hear in Sunrise and Sunset, there are moments, particularly one in a hotel room, that resemble Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage.  Although I may have said more than I usually do in a review, I think this film is for the most part spoiler-proof.  Like the preceding two, this film is all about the dialogue.  There’s a lot more time dedicated to Celine and Jesse talking to other people than in the previous two films, which could symbolize the distance growing between them.  Watching these movies can be a little disorienting, especially in the summer with the big tent pole action franchises, but it’s also encouraging to have that reminder that you can have a film be compelling with simply two characters talking for most of it.

Another major theme in the Before films is a European locale.  This time it’s in Greece, a less metropolitan area than Vienna or Paris, but still a beautiful place to set a movie (this must’ve helped the film have some privacy during filming, as no news of this film was released until after it was finished).  Looking at the hillsides or the small café on a pier that is featured prominently, the travelogue element of the series is well represented here.

Though the series wasn’t intended to be a series, just something that stemmed from Linklater, Hawke and Delpy meeting up and wondering what these characters would be up to, it has become a narrative version of the Up documentary series.  With this great trilogy of films, as well as its narrow focus but honorable ambition, I’m fully on board with seeing them follow through on this and seeing Celine and Jesse at 50, 60 and beyond.  I can’t wait to see what they have in store for 2022.

Grade: A-