Before Midnight (2013)

Rating: 4.5/5

Before Midnight comes as the third instalment in Richard Linklater's 'Before' triology, which tells the story of the love between an American man (Ethan Hawke) and a French woman (Julie Delpy). I have not seen the first two movies, but Before Midnight told a story of its own, with such truth and passion that it hardly mattered. I understood completely.

Jesse and Celine are now in their early 40s, on holiday in Greece with their twin daughters, having put Jesse's older son Hank on a flight back to his mother in Chicago, who makes things hard for father and son to see each other. Jesse wants to move back to the States to see his son more often, but Celine's entire life is in Paris, and she doesn't want to 'become a submissive housewife.'

As they drive through the beautiful mountains of Greece, and dine with friends, and wander ancient ruins, the couple talk. Just talk. The talk of real people with tangible pasts and unforeseeable futures. Their trivial chats creep into fond reminiscences, and familiar arguments.

Some of their earlier comments are cringeworthy. At a dinner party, they go into a lengthy impersonation of themselves as a suave author and his bimbo groupie. There is a discernible oddity to the way they talk and react. There is so much mutual insult, and talk of other men and women, all delivered with casual sarcasm that it creates tension and a sense of unrest between the lovers.

This tension, and the preceding embarrassment serves its purpose in a final explosive argument, in which many truths that most people can empathise with come out. It goes on, and plays out as a little drama of its own, in a realistic way that anyone can relate to. Celine throws ridiculous accusations and paranoid ideas, while Jesse pointlessly gives all the right answers and tells her she's "the Mayor of Crazytown."

The realism is the essence of Before Midnight, and clearly down to the team effort of Linklater, Hawke and Delpy, as they share writers' credit, as well as their directing and acting respectively. The entire movie is really made up of around six or seven big scenes, because these scenes are allowed to run their course naturally, and everything that should be said is said.

Dialogue is like a slice of life - like reality TV with less glamorous/brain-dead people - and performances are perfect. Through their relationship with Linklater and his trilogy, Delpy and Hawke have clearly come to know, love and respect their characters, to the point where they can become them having created them. These three have created a wonderful movie here, and what's more, they have demonstrated understanding of how humans really are. It is truly grand.