One of the most satisfying feelings offered by cinema is the
rare sense that the characters we have watched on screen have gone on living
their lives beyond the confines of the story, and that we are merely dropping
in to experience a fraction on it. Before Midnight is a film that delivers that
feeling, as it answers the question left dangling at the end of Before Sunset
and tells us that Jesse and Celine haven't left each other's side since that
film's agonisingly ambiguous climactic fade-out. In fact, they are now the parents of two
little girls, while Jesse's son remains America with his estranged wife. They are
eighteen years older and carrying a lot more baggage than they were when we
first met them in Before Sunrise, but they are recognisably the same people that
they were on that romantic night in Austria.
In a similar fashion, Before Midnight sticks rigidly to the
dynamic established in its predecessors while being subtly different enough to
distinguish itself from them. In each film, Richard Linklater follows Ethan
Hawke and Julie Delpy as they stroll around a European city at a leisurely pace,
talking about themselves, each other, their lives, loves and philosophies. If Before
Sunset was buoyed by the optimistic spirit of first love, and Before Sunset was
a more rueful film about missed connections and second chances, then Before
Midnight is about what happens after that first flush of romance has faded. It's
a more contentious, troubling and antagonistic film – as Jesse says to Celine
of their relationship, "It's not perfect, but it's real."
This film finds Jesse and Celine in Greece, where they are
spending the summer at the home of a celebrated writer who admires Jesse's
novels (which, of course, are heavily drawn from his own past experiences). The
Peloponnese peninsula is an idyllic setting, but there are storm clouds on the
horizon. Jesse's melancholy mood after sending his son back to his ex-wife leads him to raise the possibility of moving to America so they
can be closer to the boy, a possibility that Celine immediately shoots down.
This first confrontation takes place in the car ride back from the airport, a
conversation that largely unfolds in a single take and displays the ease with
which Hawke and Delpy slip into these characters. Before Midnight is all talk,
but it feels so effortless and absorbing because the way these characters talk
to each other rings so true, and is so unselfconscious. They are in their own
world, totally focused on each other, and that allows us to feel like voyeurs
snooping in on a real relationship.
Of course, we must applaud Richard Linklater for that. In
the Before films he has perfected a fluid and subtle way of guiding the
characters through these long walks and talks, and of managing the imperceptible
but sometimes seismic tonal shifts with an uncanny gracefulness. He knows just
when to move things forward and when to cut – these films are full of unusually
long scenes, but the films themselves never feel too long – and he obviously
creates an environment that allows all of his actors to contribute their best work.
Linklater references Rossellini and Rohmer during the course of Before
Midnight, but in making this series he has crafted a singular style that deserves
to be considered alongside both of those filmmakers.
The comparison with Rossellini is particularly apt, as Before
Midnight bears more than a passing relationship with his great marital crisis
movie Journey to Italy. Jesse and Celine might not be married, but the bonds
between them are so deep – and our own connection with them is so strong – it's
hard not to flinch when they begin attacking each other in the film's second
half. There are rumblings of discord throughout the film, but it's still
shocking to see these two lovers unleashing the resentments and frustrations
that are borne from a nine-year relationship. Like the first two films, Before
Midnight was co-written by Linklater and the two stars, and their equal input
into the screenplay must account for the balanced arguments and multi-faceted
characterisations that give this bickering such an impact. The extraordinarily
well handled argument scene reminded me of nothing less than Ingmar Bergman's Scenes
From a Marriage, as both parties cede ground and then gain the upper hand in
their argument, and we can see the virtues and the flaws in both characters. We
might suspect that this is not the first time they have had such a row – Celine
tells Jesse that he is always like this after sending his son back to the US –
but it is delivered with a force that makes us wonder if we might actually be
watching the end of this great love story.