Before Midnight (2013)

• Year: 2013
• Released: 14 Jun 2013
• Country: United States, Greece
• Adwords: Nominated for 1 Oscar. 20 wins & 63 nominations total
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2209418/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Before_Midnight
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/before-midnight
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, Greek, French
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Runtime: 109 min
• Writer: Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke
• Director: Richard Linklater
• Cast: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick
• Keywords: friends, hotel, writer, dream, author,

	7.9/10
	94/100

Before Midnight Storyline

The third “one day” installment in the continuing romantic saga of American Jesse and Parisienne Celine is presented. They met eighteen years ago as early twenty-somethings by chance on a Budapest to Vienna train, and spent a memorable twenty-four hours together in Vienna before parting company at the Vienna train station vowing to meet again at that exact spot in six months’ time, that subsequent meeting which never happened. They reconnected nine years later, again by chance, when Jesse, then married to another woman with a son Henry a result of that union, was on a book tour in Paris. Celine happened to notice the advertisement of him speaking at her local bookstore, this his first book, “This Time”, an account of their romantic day in Vienna. Another nine years later and living in Paris, they are now married to each other, and have twin adolescent daughters, Ella and Nina. Jesse’s Chicago residing first wife, who has sole custody of Henry, still hates him and Celine, and they only see Henry on summer and Christmas vacations, which pains Jesse especially as he feels he needs to be a more constant presence in now fourteen year old Henry’s life. They, including their three combined offspring, have spent this summer in Greece at the invitation of Patrick, a literary benefactor who only knew of Jesse previously by reputation. This day, after seeing Henry off at the airport to go home, Jesse and Celine have an al fresco dinner at Patrick’s with three other couples, each at different stages of life and at different stages of their coupledom, before they head off to a hotel alone to mark the end of their Greek stay, it a gift from their Greek friends Ariadni and Stefanos. As Jesse and Celine continue their discussions of life and love, both with their friends and alone on their own, they may come to some realizations if they can overcome the pulling priorities in their lives to remain a loving, married couple.

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Before Midnight Movie Reviews

Mixed feelings

Mixed feelings about this movie, the third of Richard Linklater’s trilogy.

The trilogy started in 1995 with Before Sunrise, continued in 2004 with Before Sunset and now, another nine years later, we have Before Midnight. The movies follow the lives and love of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy), with the span in years between movies reflecting the spans in their lives. We are getting snapshots of their lives, at nine-year intervals.

Before Sunrise was OK, but not great. Really a dressed-up romantic drama, just with a more realistic and original plot and more subtle direction than your average romance movie.

Before Sunset was the pick of the bunch. Rather than just a snapshot, it relates, through their dialogue, all the happenings in the last nine years of their lives, and demonstrates how much each of them were key in the other’s life. It had more of a complete story and more character development.

Before Midnight now picks up with them together, with their two kids, holidaying in Greece. Like the first two, it is very dialogue-intensive. Like the first two (especially Before Sunrise) the dialogue can be a big negative at times: pretentious, navel- gazing stuff.

However, on the plus side, we get to see how relationships end up. Romantic dramas tend to end with the couple walking off into the sunset, very much in love, blissfully happy and without a care in the world. They never cover all the unromantic, even irritating, stuff that comes after it: kids, domestic life, mundanity. This does.

On the downside, there is a reason this is never covered: it’s boring, even annoying. Who wants to see a bitter, very protracted argument between husband and wife? Or people discussing domestic stuff?

Thus, a two-edged sword.

So, kudos to Richard Linklater for the concept of these movies and for not shying away from the less glamorous domestic years in a relationship. However, the domestic years aren’t very entertaining to watch…

The series keeps being great

It’s 9 years after ‘Before Sunset’ in the 3rd movie of the Before series. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) are unmarried living in Paris with their twin daughters. Jesse has written 2 more books. It’s one of the last days of their summer vacation in Greece. Jesse sees his son Hank off after spending the summer with him. Hank’s mom is still angry and Jesse wants so much to spend more time with him in Chicago. Celine is thinking about taking a government job with complications.

They are 41. They have kids. It has the naturalistic long takes very much in keeping with the previous movies. I love the sly humor and human scale of their lives. There is also something great about growing old with these characters. This is what comes after happily-ever-after of the second movie. I do like the scenes with Jesse and Celine alone more than the scenes with other people. I don’t mind the other characters but I loved the private moments with just those two wandering around bullshitting. Also it’s great to have them continue their relationship with their problems.

Marriage Crisis or Bipolar Disorder?

The writer Jesse Wallace (Ethan Hawke) is married with Céline (Julie Delpy) and they have twin daughters, Ella and Nina, eighteen years after their first encounter in a train in Vienna. They live in Paris but they are spending summer vacation in Greece in the house of Jesse’s friends. In the end of the vacation, Jesse takes his fourteen year-old son Hank to the airport to fly to Chicago, where he lives with his mother. One of his Greek friends offers a hotel room for Jesse and Céline to spend one farewell dream night, but they discuss their relationship instead.

“Before Midnight” is the third chapter of the adorable saga of the French-American couple Céline and Jesse. Now they are mature and married with children, alternating good moments with crisis in their marriage like “in real life and not a fairy tale”. The chemistry between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy is very beautiful and intense and makes the movie worthwhile. Unfortunately, the plot is weak and hard to believe that a couple together for so many years has some attitude shown in the movie (for example, in the car returning from the airport). The unstable behavior of Céline, who hates her life and Jess success as a writer, seems to be of a woman with bipolar disorder and not caused by a marriage crisis. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): “Antes da Meia-Noite” (“Before Midnight”)