Did Jesse miss his plane? Did he leave his wife to stay with Celine? Have they been together all this time? these were the questions on the minds of fans who had been waiting nine years for the revelation. Accordingly, Linklater begins with a shot of two pairs of feet. One seem like a man's legs, the other are a little bit more slender. Perhaps it's Celine and Jesse walking side by side as they always seem to do. Linklater holds on the shot and slowly pans up to reveal Jesse, but he's not with Celine. He's dropping off his son at the airport since the kid is supposed to go back to his mother in Chicago. No mention of Celine. Linklater purposefully conceals her fate by dragging out the first scene of the movie. He understands what his audience wants to see and what it needs to see. With this scene, Linklater establishes seemingly trivial elements that will become significant later in the film while at the same time teasing his audience, carefully controlling its emotions.
I smiled during the first scene. It proved to me that Linklater was in complete control of a series that at times seems extremely improvisational. Then I smiled again at the payoff. Of course Celine and Jesse have been together all these years. They even have beautiful twin daughters, and, on the surface, their lives could not seem better.
On the car in their way back from the airport, Celine and Jesse talk. They warm up the audience, slowly brining it into their lives once again. They begin by talking about inconsequential things. They argue about whether or not they should stop at the ruins, whether they should wake up their twin girls, and about Jesse eating, "stealing" using Celine's word, his daughter's snack. This lures the audience into the rhythm of the conversation. Linklater relaxes the audience as he shows that Celine and Jesse (as well as Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke) still have the same chemistry and artistry with words they exhibited in the first two movies. The initial scenes of the movie are almost overwhelmingly charming and beautiful, the perfect way to disarm a cynical audience before the abrupt and rather brilliant tonal shift that occurs on the last third of the film, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Celine and Jesse are staying at the guest house of a friend and mentor of Jesse's. Here, "Before Midnight" tackles some problems that are absent from the first two films, mainly what happens when Celine and Jesse interact with other people, other couples in particular. At times, their group of friends seem like members of the audience starstruck as they watch Celine and Jesse engage in conversation. In a truly inspired segment, Celine pretends to be Jesse's bimbo trophy wife, something that supposedly all men want. Most of the time, however, the other characters provide contrast and balance to Celine and Jesse and their ideas of love and marriage. At one point of the conversation, the characters talk about love in the digital age and whether any modern relationship can survive a lifetime The conversation meanders through all sorts of topics, but, as always, it comes back to love and the the idea of a "one true love." A widow gives a moving speech about her husband. She believes they were somehow "meant" to be together. Most of the other guests almost take it for granted that they will split up at some point. Celine and Jesse, both painfully well acquainted with divorce, tend to side with the majority. Linklater does not take sides. He merely observes his characters and lets them express their opinions fully.
The first film took place in Vienna, and the second in Paris. The settings reinforced the themes and moods of the films. Vienna was an unknown place of beauty that Celine and Jesse could discover together. Paris was Celine's home ground, a place where reality could easily invade Celine and Jesse's conversations.This time around, Celine and Jesse find themselves in Greece, a not-so-subtle hint at the aging, crumbling relationship explored throughout the film. The sights of the ruins are spellbinding, and there is enough open space for Celine and Jesse as they walk and talk through endless tracking shots. Linklater pares down his style (an accomplishment considering how elegant and concise the style of the first two films was) to make it appear naturalistic, almost invisible. There is no "moody" lighting or "fanciful" camera movement, only Celine, Jesse and their words.
These words are sometimes charming, often brutal, always enthralling. Celine and Jesse have come to know each other so well that they know which buttons to push, which words will do most damage. Celine viscously attacks Jesse's ex-wife and, to the slight detriment of her character, expresses wishes that Jesse would abandon his previous commitments to be with her; Jesse tries to rationalize everything while seeking to turn simple, straight forward conflicts, into intellectual discussions, something he knows will aggravate his highly emotional (some would say paranoid) wife.
Even after a devastating fight (that takes up 30 minutes of screen time) mostly concerning the ramifications of Jesse having left his wife and kid, Jesse concludes by saying that he still loves Celine and that he will continue to make sacrifices for her because he truly loves her and is committed to make their relationship work. Will their relationship continue? The film ends in an ambiguous, although slightly hopeful, note that at least suggests Celine and Jesses's adventures are far from over.
Verdict- 4/4
Before Midnight (2013) 1h. 48min. R
Random Thoughts
-Way back in "Before Sunrise" Celine and Jesse met because they were both trying to escape the loud arguments of a German couple. Now, 20 years later, they have become that couple. Here's a great piece about it by Linda Holmes: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/05/23/186226960/before-midnight-jesse-and-celine-are-older-now-and-so-are-we
- This is, without a doubt, the best film I have seen this year.
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