We look at Before Midnight, the final chapter in the Before trilogy
Successful cinematic trilogies generally tend to either the gleefully bombastic – with a costume budget devoted to latex – or to the queasily saccharine, starring a misunderstood immortal whose undead eyes send multiplexes of teenage girls into hysterical swoons. Yet sitting quietly amid the summer blockbusters is Before Midnight, the third chapter in the romance of Jesse and Celine, which began in a chance meeting on a Vienna bound train, and was reinvigorated at the Shakespeare & Company bookshop in Paris nine years later. Another nine years have now passed, and the couple are living together in Paris – the parents of angelic twin girls – and currently on holiday in the miraculously beautiful South Peloponnese.
"Without melodrama, we take a walk with Jesse and Celine through an intensely human exposé of marital politics"
The Before… films have never been about events or drama. They unfurl upon the stream of a conversation that has expanded through the initial flirtation of two people enmeshed in themselves and each other, and grown to incorporate the slings and arrows of children, jobs, fears of ageing, fears of change and the fear of an endless future in each other’s company. Without melodrama, we take a walk with Jesse and Celine through an intensely human exposé of marital politics; the wilful misunderstandings, the jokes, the cruelty and the all-consuming panic that comes with having children. The battle-lines of a co-dependent life are shaken, rejected and renegotiated, using language and performances that skip and dazzle in the same manner as the first films, but with pronounced gravity and power. Embracing reality in all its baggy eyed, greying, wide hipped glory, Delpy, Hawke and director Richard Linklater have fashioned an exquisite third instalment in a trilogy that has grown up with its characters, creating a wise and witty celebration of the undeniable hardships and joys of love.
Before Midnight is in cinemas now.
