Before Midnight Review

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy out for a stroll in Before Midnight

Photo Credit: Sony Pictures Classics

Before Midnight

A+

A Review by Frederick Cholowski

Hollywood films have always had a faulty perception of love and all that it entails. The films industry often overdramatizes the idea of romance to bring an audience to a theater without truly investigating the reality of love and a relationship. This is why it’s always refreshing when the rare film like Before Midnight is released that provides a more realistic look of the nature and challenges of long term love. This is the best in the “Before” trilogy (it really is a funny thing to think that there have been more than one film) and is easily not only the best film of 2013 but the best film I’ve seen in quite some time (yes perhaps even better than all of the fantastic films of last year). It’s going to takes something truly special to beat this knock this off the top of the hill in 2013.

Before Midnight is the third in the so far “Before” trilogy all of whom investigates different stages of human love. The first, Before Sunrise showed the dizzying feeling of near instant love and the way it’s handled in just a single night. The second, Before Sunset investigated the reconnection and the regrets when the two meet up for the second time after nine years of being apart. Before Midnight picks up about nine years after Before Sunset, but instead of Jesse and Celine (played as usual by the amazing Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) being apart during the nine years they have built a new life together. Before Midnight, through a series of investigative conversations investigates the long term nature of their relationship and how they have dealt with being in a more mature relationship. Safe to say it’s not as easy as it seems.

There are always a handful of elements that can be expected in a “Before” film. The first is the sharp writing. When boiled down to its basic elements Before Midnight is essentially a series of conversations between Jesse, Celine and a few brief guest appearances. In this kind of film dialogue is absolutely essential and here it’s near perfect. Conversations feel like real conversations often taking routes into different subjects and even the random, but that ultimately are connected in an intimate way. The dialogue is improvisational and truly brilliant perfectly capturing not only really engaging and funny conversations but the true developed feelings of Jesse and Celine and the relationship they are in.

The second element to expect is fantastic acting from both Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. At this point Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play such a believable pair that they may as well be together. Their continued impeccable chemistry shows two characters that know each other almost too well and can play off each other practically perfectly. Their chemistry is only heightened in this film with the material they are given and it’s truly a fantastic thing to watch them play off each other for nearly two hours.

The element that makes Before Midnight even more fantastic then the rest of the films is that Before Midnight reaches into some darker places this go around. The film shows the pain and bitterness in their growing relationship in the ways that the previous two films in the series did not. Jesse and Celine have now been together for a long period of time and all the frustrations and nitpicks in their relationship begin to come out. The film also displays this by having Jesse and Celine actually interact with other characters (especially well in a fantastic dinner scene that has a great French cinema feel to it) in the first half of the film allowing writer/director Richard Linklater, and his actors and co-writers Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy to really express how Jesse and Celine work as a relationship in a group before they are again sent out on long conversations between just to two of them.

Visually the film keeps it simple, much to the betterment of the film. Linklater, at this point, has immense respect for these actors and the dialogue that has been written and improvised and ultimately stays out of the way of the proceedings with very simple camera work. Long takes are often used to allow a conversation to flow and change, as the relationship between these two characters is allowed to simply unfold. The visuals are simple and elegant allowing for the writing and acting to do the work. The same thing applies to the score that is soothing and simple and provides a nice background to the proceedings. It all amounts to a simple yet perfect feeling visual presentation that complements the true centre of the film, the conversations.

Before Midnight is easily the best motion picture to hit theaters in 2013 so far. It provides a look at how tough a relationship can be and the truth of a “happily ever after.” It provides a series of conversations that provide powerful, realistic insight into the world of long term relationships in a way that very few other films can. It’s a masterpiece of a romance film that is truly in the top of its class. I most likely won't see a better film in 2013 then Before Midnight.