Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)

A Greek dramedy.

We have ventured with them through the streets of Vienna and tagged along on their reflective walk one Parisian afternoon. Jesse and Celine, as far as modern cinematic couples are concerned, is indeed the thinking man/woman's love team, thanks to Richard Linklater's deeply contemplative yet very entertaining style of writing. And after all these years, the first film, "Before Sunrise", still stands tall as a wonderful testament of how bittersweet a happenstance romance can be, while "Before Sunset" effortlessly goes to show how a hyper-idealized overnight love can completely change when, paraphrasing Jason Silva, lovers finally go their separate ways and return to their respective task-based existence. 

9 years ago, we were left to draw our own conclusions regarding what can happen to Jesse and Celine and whether or not their picture-perfect romance can carry itself away from the pragmatic hassles of reality, as Jesse is after all already married and has a son. Finally, though, we now have the answer in the form of "Before Midnight": the final chapter to the 'Jesse and Celine' saga. Yeah, that totally sounded like an epic superhero film.

In this film, Jesse and Celine are on a Greek getaway, and this time, it's not, in any way, a happenstance encounter but an official family vacation (along with their twin daughters). Yes, here in "Before Midnight", Jesse and Celine is finally (and permanently) together, albeit unmarried. Not the exact set-up you might expect if you think of an ideal kind of love, but hey, better to have that than nothing at all. Sure, both of them were physically withered by age quite a bit, but the energy of how they connect with each other is just as fresh and young as the moment when they first met in a sleepy train ride back in Vienna. "Before Midnight", with its preservation of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's on-screen chemistry that spans close to two decades, delivers just the right amount of ups and downs, romance-wise, to leave unto us a feeling that we've just been witnesses to what may be the closest cinema has gotten in perfectly capturing the essence of a flawed but nonetheless true kind of love.

Comparatively speaking, watching "Before Midnight" in all its sexual innuendos, hurtful gender slurs, and overwhelming pragmatism makes "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" seem like two innocent younger brothers who have just gotten out of the house long enough to frolic freely in the streets for a while. Simply put, "Before Midnight" looks just like the big brother who has finally arrived to fetch his younger siblings so that he can smack some sense into them that no, it should never be all play. Though the film is still ripe with nostalgic talks about time in relation to love and love in relation to life at large and all that idealizing romantic bull, it's more clear on what it wants to examine, and that is the separation of love from the conundrums of life and vice versa. Unlike the first two films which seem to indulge only on reflections about what can be and what could have been between Jesse and Celine, "Before Midnight" is the realistic wake-up call that things are bound to inevitably fall apart. 

With Richard Linklater on the helm and on scribe duty, it's not a surprise that the film is just as layered as the first two films. This time, though, everything seems to be very much at stake, as both Jesse and Celine, for the first time in their screen lives, are quite careening into an emotional climax that may just be as explosive as the one in "The Avengers". Are we going to see them just as strong as before? Or, as surreal as it may sound, are we going to see them bitterly part ways? In ways more than one, "Before Midnight" is the maturation that we've all been waiting for and are unconsciously dying to see, because as much as it feels good to see them together at the end of "Before Sunset", it's still an altogether different kind of ballgame to tackle the all too real things (such as career conflicts, priorities, and family) that go along with love like prickly bonus items. And for that, I guess Linklater has nothing short of done something that makes me believe that, no, the telling of great love stories in films is yet to run its course. On the other hand, though, it's sad to think that to make me believe just that, it has to be done by ending one of the bestest modern ones there is. 

Like a more optimistic and infinitely more humorous "Scenes from a Marriage", "Before Midnight" is an extraordinary film that will force you to think twice about being married, but at the same time will convince you to just hold on to the imperfect truth that holds two people together like Velcro. And as Jesse and Celine struggle through a mudflow of insecurities, misled accusations, and complex decisions, the Velcro still sticks, and neither of them know the definite reason how and why save for the fact that, well, it just does. And remember what Celine was repeatedly saying while watching the sun set? "Still there." In the end, perhaps she can say the same to the love that she and Jesse have stumbled upon one fateful day in Vienna nearly 20 years ago; a kind that they thought would only be nothing but a fling, only to find out that there's definitely more to it than the aimless walks through cobblestone streets.

FINAL RATING

Before Sunset (Richard Linklater)

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprise their roles in Richard Linklater's more contemplative follow-up to "Before Sunrise".

Film Review Archive (date seen: December 7, 2010)

Now here's a sequel made not because it has a new or unique story (I believe within the ratio of chances that the love story in the two films can really happen) to tell, but because of the natural ease of conversational exchanges and spontaneous sarcasms between Jesse and Celine, two characters that many people have loved so much that it has inspired its makers (including stars Hawke and Delpy) to urgently tell what happened and what could have been in a happenstance meeting 9 years later in Paris.

By the summary of the film, it's already given that their promise to meet on a train station in Vienna was particularly broken by either one of them. So as if fate has brought them to the city of love itself, "Before Sunset" is the center stage for their reunion, to measure up how they've changed, physically, emotionally, and even politically, while at the same short amount of time, contemplate all the 'what if' scenarios that could have been brought into their lives if the promise they've kept to see each other again was fulfilled.
If "Before Sunrise" is a definitive love story film for young lovers, "Before Sunset" is a matured observation of love, marriage, and no, not mid-life crisis (as what could have been expected in a sequel conceived 9 years after the first part), but about the contemplative spirit of a fateful night in the streets of Vienna that has might as well half-filled all the passions and perfect dreams Jesse and Celine ever had, and how another moment, even in a tranquil afternoon in Paris, is sorely necessary not just to pick up the pieces, but to piece out the fragments that surely could have been a lasting love. It may not be enough to fill up the other half, but it is, after all those years of neutral existence, a reassurance that they still can.

FINAL RATING

Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater)

The Vienna connection.

Film Review Archive (date seen: December 2, 2010)

"Before Sunrise" is a romance film pretty much unaffected by spoilers of any type, not because of any complexities that are involved in the story, but because the start and end of this unexpected love found in the most compatible of places are already given; what mattered most and further emphasized was what happened in between.

Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan has inserted impressively ingenious dialogues, ranging from brief philosophical views about life and death to trivial matters such as fortune-telling and even the cliches of male fantasies. But through this, director Linklater has able to weave both a gentle poem about the beauty of love and a valid question of "how long does it really take to consider 'love' as a transcendental one?" Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are both natural and genuinely affecting as Jesse and Celine, two people who had the greatest chance encounter of their lives but with not enough time in their hands.

"Before Sunrise" may not be the most aesthetically-excellent romantic film, but it surely is one of the most satisfying expositions of a love threatened to be hindered by the absolute reality of time, but exceeded it with both people's urgency to feel and connect, brought about by the unconscious push of a ticking clock, a scheduled flight back to America, and a train ride to Paris. "One night may suffice." That may be Richard Linklater's answer to the aforementioned question above.

FINAL RATING