More than 18 years ago, Ethan Hawke asked Julie Delpy to get
off a train with him in Vienna and unknowingly set off perhaps the most
unconventional franchise of all time, a story about two bright, pensive,
hopelessly idealistic youths who fall in love and talk and talk. And talk.
During their first night together, Jesse and Celine discussed everything from
their parents to religion to the meaning of life, and their meandering
conversations imbued what could have been the epitome of arthouse
pretentiousness with an endearing authenticity. By itself, Before Sunrise would still have been a sweet, thoughtful romance
that accurately captured the mood of a certain generation both empowered and
trapped by its own promise, but with his decision to continue Jesse and
Celine’s story beyond the moment when she boards the train without him,
writer-director Richard Linklater has crafted something special: a romance
unflinching in its honesty yet delightfully free of cynicism.
Before Midnight, the third installment
in the series, is also perhaps the best. On the surface, it may not seem much
different from the usual marriage-in-crisis drama a la Blue Valentine, Rabbit Hole
or Revolutionary Road, but whereas
those movies plunge headlong into the depths of tragedy and despair, Before Midnight lets the tension simmer
just beneath the surface so that when it finally, inevitably culminates in a
heated argument, the outburst of emotion feels not harrowing but simply
heartbreaking. It helps that after Before
Sunrise and Before Sunset, we’ve
spent so much time with Jesse and Celine that their relationship feels utterly
real – neither a fairy-tale nor a nightmare but so much in between, the
accumulation of countless shared memories, experiences, compromises, hopes and
regrets. All the more impressive is Linklater’s ability to invite us into his
characters’ minds, to share their secrets, motives and histories, without
resorting to contrived exposition or shattering the illusion that we are
watching actual people live their lives, rather than characters subject to a
fixed narrative. The dialogue unfolds with such invigorating ease that it’s
easy to forget that every word, tangent and nuance was meticulously scripted,
yet even the most banal snippets resonate with implicit meaning. In most hands,
the film’s leisurely pace and fluid structure would result in a tedious,
unfocused mess, but for Linklater, it proves liberating, allowing each scene to
breathe.
As the central
lovers, Hawke and Delpy are as charming as ever. They exchange witty,
thoughtful banter with the spontaneity of expert improvisers, their chemistry a
lively ballet of glances, gestures and half-sincere responses. However, as
enjoyable as it is to watch them joke and reminisce with each other, the actors
(and, by extension, their characters) are most mesmerizing when they let beads
of discontent, frustration and resentment seep through the amiable façade of
their relationship. During the climactic argument, they don’t lob arbitrary
insults and retorts at each other; you can see the subtle shifts in their
facial expressions as they attempt to maintain some semblance of civility while
navigating the whirlwind of emotions, alternately rationalizing, attacking and
defending. When Jesse insists to Celine that he loves her, and Hawke’s voice,
barely above a whisper, strains with anger and desperation, it’s like a knife
to the gut.
It
would be disingenuous to say Before
Midnight completely avoids the usual clichés associated with romance films.
After all, like virtually all entries in the genre, it follows the trials and
tribulations of two attractive, smart, privileged (not to mention white) people
who regularly attend dinner parties and go on expensive family vacations to
remote, scenic areas; as Jesse points out, much to Celine’s irritation, they
live in Paris. However, what
differentiates Jesse and Celine from, say, the characters in Friends with Kids, a movie that manages
to combine the sappy predictability of mainstream rom-coms with the
even-more-irritating pretentiousness of indie rom-coms, is that the former are aware
of how fortunate – and flawed they are. The movie doesn’t try to ignore the
reality of their world, which is also ours, by pretending that Jesse and Celine
exist in a fantasyland free from poverty, war and injustice. Linklater, Hawke
and Delpy know that, while lots of people can identify with the film and its
characters, it is still primarily aimed toward a certain demographic or, more
specifically, a certain generation. From the start, the Before series has done a terrific job conveying the sense of
infinite possibility mixed with infinite loneliness that defined the past two
decades, as technology simultaneously shrank the world and complicated it,
alerting individuals to the inconsequentiality of their existence. Arguably
more than love, Before Midnight is
fascinated by our constantly, rapidly evolving society and the effects of
politics, the media and social expectations on contemporary life. By daring to
engage with the real world (without, it must be noted, ever becoming belligerent
or didactic), the film assumes a quiet, intimate timeliness.
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