Before Midnight movie review & film summary (2013)

Written by Linklater, Hawke and Delpy, "Before Midnight" is economical from the start. In a single camera movement, it reveals what has happened to Jesse and Celine since the last time we saw them in her apartment in Paris. Now they're the married parents of small twins, in Greece for the summer holidays. After taking his son from his first marriage to the airport, Jesse dives into a small crisis, worrying that he is an absent father and triggering a series of discussions with Celine. This time, however, the film also includes scenes that involve Jesse and Celine talking to younger and older couples, offering different views on love, marriage and romance.

Like its predecessors, "Before Midnight" is made up of very long takes. These allow conversations to flow with a naturalness that brings us closer to the characters and highlights the effect of age on the main actors. Ethan Hawke still displays the playfulness of his past incarnations, but counterbalanced by the weight of time; he has more lines in his face, and a voice made hoarse by age and cigarettes.  Julie Delpy has wrinkles and has gained a bit of weight, which she displays with seeming confidence and comfort; the beautiful girl has matured into an even more beautiful woman. In the past, Jesse and Celine talked about the future, their ambitions, fears and dreams. Now they focus on the mistakes of the past and on their present problems, and refer to their future only as a hypothetical scenario in which they would attend their partner’s funeral.

And therein lies the genius of "Before Midnight": it would be easy to build a romanticized third chapter to serve as the climax for the previous two, but Linklater, Delpy and Hawke choose instead to look at Jesse and Celine as a mature couple. The film offers an appropriate and natural view on the experience of a consummated love. In the second movie, "Before Sunset," the couple met and rekindled their romance. This time they possess each other with a familiarity created by coexistence. The mutual idealization of the past has been replaced by comfort in each other’s presence — and also with an underlying, perfectly understandable irritation. Before, they could only guess what was going on in each other's minds. Now Jesse and Celine have a PhD in Celine and Jesse, respectively. They can be lethal in discussion because they know exactly where to hit; which old wound to squeeze; which sour memory of the past to dredge up, and when.

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