Antes de la medianoche

First and foremost, this is not your typical mainstream summer movie. However, if you're reading this, then I'm sure you've already seen the two preceding films, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. If you have, then you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. This movie is driven by the characters and their dialog. No fancy special effects, no elaborate sets, no uber-popular actors to stuff in the movie to make people watch it. Just great dialog from two excellent actors.

Now that that's out of the way, I was a little uninterested when hearing about this movie, that it was filmed in Greece. However, after seeing the film tonight, I find that the setting was quite lovely and really had little to do with the movie itself. The movie was more about how these two main characters are dealing with getting older and being parents, and how over time, your opinions about things and about each other can change.

One thing I've always liked about these movies is the gritty realism of the two characters. Being an American myself, and previously having a French girlfriend (and living in France), I can totally relate to the two characters and the idiosyncrasies that are attributed to both of them in this story of their lives.

This movie was, once again, a model example of good dialog and great characters! I was very happy to see this movie, and I'm glad to see the writers haven't lost their touch. This movie was written by not only the director, but also the two main actors, and this series is really their "baby" - you can tell much love and care went into these films, even though they are all shot very quickly and with a small budget. I love how there are very few cuts in most of the scenes, and you can tell that everything about this movie was simple. This is a true breath of fresh air in time full of poorly-written movies and cheap special effects.

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.

Before Midnight (2013)

The most interesting facet to this slim movie is that it continues the singular predecessors with such glowing continuity. Most people know that Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke started their conversational fictional companionship on film with "Before Sunrise" and then continued it with "Before Sunset." The first of these was shot in 1995, and the next followup was nine years later, and then this new one, nine years more.

If you saw (and liked) the first two films as I did, this continuance alone makes "Before Midnight" worth checking out. And if there is a huge deadening flaw here it is simply that the continuing continues so expectedly. There are times here when this couple—which has been living together for nearly a decade—talk as though they are on that first date in 1995. It's not that they don't know certain things about each other, but more that they are talking about things as if for the first time--and they are such common things. Surely they've gotten around to some of this stuff before. It's not endlessly revelatory.

The director of all three films is Richard Linklater, and he absolutely gets a lot of the credit for an easy, almost languid style. Some would call it boring—all talk and walk, nothing much to watch. But it isn't boring. The first movie for sure is the most fresh (it was the first one), but the second keeps things really interesting because the two leads (Jesse and Celine) are meeting up again after a huge gap, and it's an odd and unpredictable situation. By 2013 things have fundamentally solidified. They are a happy couple with twin girls, living in France. The day proceeds with conversation, and we listen closely (there is nothing else to do), but in fact there is nothing to be surprised or even curious about.

So the words become so critical they can't help but fail. A long dinner conversation with a group of educated friends is fast paced and filled with clever banter, but it goes nowhere. Yes, you absolutely wish you were there (and maybe that you had such friends—that would depend). But what is said is not so wonderful after all. It's just a mood of warm, lively companionship.

Likewise elsewhere. It's all fun and clever. When they squabble a bit it never seems remotely possible that the fight is for real, or that the incredible ease and love shown earlier in the movie would unravel with a slight ill wind. The very last scene confirms, and is oddly wan.

So—a mixed bag. I truly think if you haven't seen these films you might find the style and the remarkable believability (at times) really special. It is. But for me it was more special and more interesting as a story in the earlier movies. This one can now not be separated from those, however, and the great whole, a trilogy with a possibility of more to come, is a special and worthy part of contemporary cinema. Start somewhere and see what this is all about.

The 56th San Francisco International came to a close at the magnificent Castro Theatre with a showing of Richard Linklater's "Before Midnight", the third in Linklater's series of "Before…" films. Preceded by "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset", the film continues the story of Jesse and Celine, now a middle-aged, two child couple on vacation in Greece. Things are not quite right between the two, and there is much to be said between them. So they talk. For two hours. And it is absolutely enthralling.

I have to admit that I haven't seen the first two films. I was aware of them, but they just never jumped out at me as something I had to see. I admire Linklater's work ( I thought last year's "Bernie" was one of the best films of the year) but just never had a reason to put seeing those films above others I had more interest in. I attended the screening mainly because it was the closing night film, but had concerns that not having seen the previous two would put me at a disadvantage in appreciating his latest. Festival friend (and "Before…" series lover) Stacy McCarthy assured me the film stands on its own.

She was right. Nothing much goes on in this film but conversations between people, but these conversations are fascinating and have a sense of reality about them often missing from films of this nature. Credit for that obviously goes to director Linklater and actors Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who collaborated on the script. It doesn't hurt that the film was shot in Greece, but the picturesque beauty of that country comes second to the riveting portrayal of a couple at the stage of life where the often painful questioning of a couple's future begins.

Two hours with these characters flew by, and as the credits rolled my first thoughts were about how much I really liked the film, and how I need to think more "out of the box" when it comes to selecting films to view. I'm guilty of often limiting my scope, and I'm thankful that Film Festivals force me to widen my film horizons.

www.worstshowontheweb.com

I just saw this amazing movie at its Sundance premiere. It's wonderful on so many levels I don't know where to start. The performances are fantastic. If Julie Delpy doesn't get an Oscar nomination it would be a shame (the only stupider thing the Academy could do is have 10 best picture nominations.) Ethan Hawke's performance is brilliant in its own way, however, it's a less showy part and I'm not certain it'll get the recognition it deserves.

The writing is astounding. Sharp, intelligent, biting, humorous, with staggering subtext, but most importantly--it feels real. If the screenplay doesn't get an Oscar nomination it would be a shame (the only thing stupider the Academy could do is have 15 best picture nominations.)

Rick Linklater is now officially the Jedi master of indie filmmaking (Yoda Soderbergh actually said he's giving up filmmaking.) SLACKERS was only 22 years ago, and Linklater has matured into one of the most original filmic storytellers in the history of the medium. 95% of the movie is two-shots of people talking (the other 5% is people talking at a dinner table and cut aways to the gorgeous Greek landscape.) I don't know any other living filmmaker who could pull this off. There's a one-take during a car drive that lasts probably ten minutes (before a brief cut away), however, it goes on for probably another ten minutes (and Linklater said he could have kept the whole take, but needed to show ruins along the country side and cut away for script purposes, not performance.) There's a 30 minute scene of the two actors in a hotel room and I didn't even notice it (by that time I was so invested in the characters and their actions and emotions I wasn't even aware of time, it wasn't until the post screening Q&A that Linklater mentioned the actual time of the scene.)

All three, Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke have matured into their rolls (writing, directing, acting) so easily that it's all just great fun for them and the audience. This is a must see for many reasons (including the history of film--there's only one other modern trilogy where the final film is the best--LOTR, and their food budget was probably more than the total cost of BEFORE MIDNIGHT.)

i could go on gushing about this movie ad nauseum, however I'll finish by saying that BEFORE MIDNIGHT is what indie film making (and the Sundance Film Festival) is all about--truly original, creative, unique, interesting characters and their stories, told outside the Hollywood system, by people passionate about their craft (and in this case at the top of their craft).