Before Midnight: Review

I’ve been watching Before Midnight since I was an innocent teenager, or at least I’ve been watching the two characters, Jessie and Celine, talk about what it means to be in relationship for that long. I saw the first movie, Before Sunrise, when I was in my teens, sixteen maybe? It was before I’d ever been on a date or gone to a dance, or had a conversation longer than three sentences with any member of the opposite sex that I found remotely attractive. What makes this germane is that for some reason I immediately latched on to the characters in Before Sunrise as representatives of the sort of romance that I’d like to have at some point in my life as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

My sister, two years older than me, was quite influential, which means that I watched the plethora of romantic comedies that were churned out in the mid to late nineties.   I watched Matchmaker and Dave, and anything with Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts in it. In short, I was basically a sixteen year old teenage girl in movie and romantic tastes. And yet, despite my lack of comprehension about how one conversed with women, I knew that what I saw in Before Sunrise is what I would one day like to have: the type that ranges from religion, to sex, to friendship, to psychology, philosophy, one’s grandparents, and failed dreams. It struck me as true, and started the long love affair that I now have with trains, and conversation, and travel. I rarely travel and almost never ride trains, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love them from afar.

The interesting part about the arrival of Before Midnight , the third installment in this series, was my discovery, made by reading various movie reviews and Grantland that a number of like-minded  males existed out in the world. I listened to a podcast on Grantland about the movie and both writers for the web site confessed to loving Before Sunrise, having a romantic idea of convincing a girl to be with them just with the gift of gab. Of course, it’s not so much that Jessie convinces a French girl to get off the train with him. it’s the exchange between the two of them that makes the movie interesting, life-like. It’s about as good an attempt as I’d seen at bridging the gap that movies always run into of not having enough time in the characters thoughts to make them fully realized. If the movie only has 103 minutes, we’re going to spend almost all of them getting to hear these people speak in interesting ways.

Well, spoilers. The first shot in the movie is iconic for viewers of the first two films: a shot of only the actor’s feet, two pairs of sneakers traversing the same path. What makes this particular opening shot so brilliant is that it’s not of Jessie and Celine as it was in the previous movies. Rather, it’s of Jessie and his son at the airport. The son is on his way back to be with his mother, the women who Jessie divorced in order to be with Celine. Thus, we immediately are embroiled in the consequences of their previously only romantic affair. And Jessie makes it clear that it pains him to be without his son. And consequently, he resents himself, and the relationship with Celine in very minute but difficult ways because of the breach it has caused in his life. This small breach is the beginning of a forty five minute argument that comprises the latter half of the movie.  And, though it’s more fun to watch the two of them banter about being in their twenties and walk through the streets of Vienna, and equally fun, though partially sad, to watch them rediscover one another in the streets of Paris, with failing marriages, career shifts, and the changes that happen when dreams start to harden into reality, it’s this latest iteration that rings the truest because they are pulled out of the love vortex and into the real world, which is messy. Quit e frankly, as a romantic, I probably like the first two movies better, but that doesn’t mean that they are actually better. From the opening shot of the different pairs of shoes the movie is relentlessly adult: jobs, expenses, shares of house work, etc.

From the airport, Celine and Jessie  drive off into the Grecian isles. The difference is that they are now accompanied on their romantic adventures by two twin girls, asleep in the back seat. These angelic twins, sleeping so peacefully keep Jessie and Celine from stopping at the site of some old ruins, which rings true.. A childless couple could go see the ruins and enjoy them, wander around chatting, or blow them off to go have passionate sex in a hotel room:  parents just try and talk quietly to make sure the kids remain asleep. The other thing that you notice right away is that Celine and Jessie are aging, a fact which the camera and make up and lighting make no attempt to hide. Nineteen years have passed since the first film, and it’s kind of weird to keep revisiting them in these roles because it makes the viewer conscious of both the characters age, and their own aging process, but really, kudos to the movie for not dolling them up. 

The movie chugs along, including the now famous riffs by Jessie about ideas for books or movies or speculation about the nature of an afterlife that includes reincarnation and Celine gamely working in the kitchen. The long scene, which comprises the middle portion of the movie, (these shots are always endless and pure, and Greece looks beautiful and very far away, much to my chagrin) involves a conversation between several different generations about the nature of relationships and sex, and, though it lags at points, settling on some of the caricatures of men desiring only sex, rather than intimacy, it winds up landing in a very poignant way, as two older couples talk about what it means to stay together, how that person becomes an essential part of you, so much so that the women remembers her departed love the most at sunset. This long form love is juxtaposed with that of a young couple who have a blasé attitude about love, knowing that the sex and intimacy are only brief stopovers before they move away into other cities, other arms.

If the movie has a weakness, it’s that the character played by Julie Delpy, Celine, has hardened from a mildly crazy, and okay, yes, mildly neurotic woman, into a bit of a harridan. Her wild swings in emotion and intentionally hurtful pot shots abound throughout the movie. She seems menopausal, though she’s too young for it, and I think that perhaps her character wasn’t as rounded as it could be. In previous movies, it was clear that part of her charm was wrapped up in this madness. However, in this movie it feels a bit overplayed, and the viewer almost feels bad for Jessie. Almost. Jessie is always filled with ideas about life, love, the nature of reality etc, but what he’s really in love with is the ideas that originate from him, thus, what could feel like an exploration is really a strange kind of selfishness. To be fair, I do love the character and I feel resonances with that character, but he’s not perfect either.

Eventually the two of them settle into the now familiar back and forth talking that were the root of the previous two movies. The two of them have been given a night away, and they do what any couple with children would do with a brief time away: they reconnect and then they fight. The connection is natural as they slip into the habits that were once a natural part of their days and nights together. However, the tricky part is the argument that follows, which I’d argue is also par for the course. Given the small windows in which the two characters can connect and talk with one another, it is in this brief space away that they finally have the time to air their grievances, part of reconnecting is figuring out if you still have a connection, and sometimes that can be a delicate process.

I won’t cover the specifics of the argument except to say that it is done elegantly. Julie Delpy argues for a solid twenty minutes completely topless because it is the argument that is more important than clothes. (I’ll point out that one of the sadder moments is when Jessie tells Celine that he missed waking up in the morning and listening to the whirring of her beautiful mind. She counters with something along the lines of being busy working, taking care of children and the house.) The two of them discuss his ex wife, infidelity, family, living in Paris, living in the United States, whether they still love one another etc. The painful part of the argument are those few moments when the two of them could stop arguing, or say sorry, (which feel familiar) but instead they choose to get one last dig or stab in, which sucks you back in to the mayhem of an argument.

Arguments are strange in that way. How they can grow out of a small thing and rise into grievances you’ve been carrying around for months or years. They are as strange as our minds. I won’t go on to describe the argument in much more detail, but it’s probably the best representation of what a long term couple looks like when they are arguing, not when they are getting divorced, but when they are going through that sometimes shit-y and divisive process of staying together. It ends with a sunset. It ends with hope. Somewhere, in the distance, I can hear the low rumble of a train.