Before Midnight

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).

I just saw Richard Linklater's Before Midnight his newest and third film about Jesse and Celine the couple who meet as young adults in Before Sunrise and re-meet as adults in Before Sunset (one of my five favorite films).

This is simply brilliant film making: funny, raw, emotionally honest and complicated. The couple (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy who both co-wrote with Linklater) are now in their 40s and face some very real challenges to their menage. I started laughing and crying within about 3 minutes and both emotions kept up until the very end. Everyone sat through the credits so they could wipe their faces clean. Brilliant acting . . .

This film gives one hope for the state of American film making and reminds you that Linklater is one of our most underrated auteurs. I sincerely hope he continues and I live long enough to see the couple well into their senior years.

Even if you have never seen the first two movies, do not miss this one.

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.

This time, I find the film boring and just not charming. Instead of relating to each other, they are just bickering all the time. You can say it is raw and real, but that is not what I want to see.