FILM REVIEW Before Midnight

GOING STRONG?Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy give impressive performances in Richard Linklater’s ‘Before Midnight’.

A relationship revisited


Fergal Rock

For viewers of a certain age, Richard Linklater’s ‘Before Sunrise’ (1995) was one of the defining cinematic experiences of the mid-’90s. A low-budget romantic drama, the Vienna-set film starred Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as a pair of chatty romantics with the world at their fingertips. That film was followed in 2004 by ‘Before Sunrise’, and now, Hawke and Delpy return for the third film in the series, ‘Before Midnight’.
The first film played as a near-fantasy encounter between two people who, over the course of a single night, forge a connection knowing they may never see each other again. Hawke had just made ‘Reality Bites’ (1994), another defining, yet now far more dated snapshot of the era. Delpy had just starred in Kryzstof Kiezlowski’s ‘Three Colours: White’ (1994), itself a defining moment in European cinema of that period. Meanwhile, Linklater was fresh from the success of his second film, ‘Dazed and Confused’. The stars, as they say, were in perfect alignment and the film was a surprise hit.
As the years passed, ‘Before Sunrise’ continued to attract new audiences through VHS and, subsequently, DVD sales. and when Linklater, Hawke and Delpy decided to re-visit the story a decade on, viewers of a certain age flocked to the cinema to catch up with their long-lost friends.
Set in Paris, the second film was equally well received, but it lacked some of its predecessor’s charm. ‘Before Sunrise’ had been conceived and written by Linklater and his collaborator Kim Krizan, then later extrapolated by Hawk and Delpy. ‘Before Sunset’ was written by Hawk, Delpy and Linklater. Fine actors both, Hawk and Delpy were no longer the stars they once were, eschewing Hollywood vehicles in favour of more personal projects like ‘Chelsea Walls’, written and directed by Hawk in 2001 and ‘Looking for Jimmy’, which Delpy directed the year after. Conversely, Linklater had just scored his most commercial hit to date with ‘School of Rock’ (2003).  
While there had been an element of youthful fantasy to ‘Before Sunrise’, ‘Before Sunset’ sought to transplant these characters to a ‘real world’ with real-time problems and real-time consequences. The results were mixed, but the film paved the way for ‘Before Midnight’, this latest and arguably most rewarding instalment in the enduring franchise.  
Opening almost a decade on, Jesse (Hawk) and Celine (Delpy) are on holiday in Greece. Hank (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), Jesse’s son from his first marriage, has joined them for the summer and is about to return to the States.
Jesse is sad to see him leave: Living in Paris with Celine and their twin daughters, Jesse regrets missing out on Hank’s formative years. Meanwhile, Celine receives some devastating news and decides to re-think her career path. When Jesse tells Celine he wishes he could spend more time with Hank, she tells him she doesn’t want to move to America. An argument ensues and continues in one form or another throughout the course of the film.  
Of the three films to date, ‘Before Midnight’ is the first to feel truly relatable. ‘Before Sunrise’ had an aspirational quality. It was naturalistic but it was fantasy. ‘Before Sunset’ strived for realism but felt weighted down by its arch dialogue and ultimately sold out to fantasy in its inevitable climax. ‘Before Midnight’ gets the balance just right.
Hawk and Delpy give terrific performances as Jesse and Celine. Linklater’s direction is unobtrusive and assured, and Greece, as did Paris and Vienna before it, provides a fantastic backdrop to their story. Even though they’ve written themselves into a bit of a corner with the film’s title, it would be a joy to revisit these characters again.

Rating 7 out of 10