 |
| Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in "Before Midnight." |
They fell in love in “Before Sunrise” in 1995, reunited
nine years later in “Before Sunset” and then got married. But when we catch up
with Jessie (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) nine years later in “Before
Midnight,” things have gotten, as the title suggests, considerably darker. The couple
we’ve essentially watch grow up on screen—evolving carefully from strangers
flirting with romance in Venice, to friends reigniting lost passions in Paris,
to married parents vacationing in Greece—are now teetering on the brink of
divorce.
Problems start fast. Jessie has just dropped off Hank
(Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), the teenage son from his first marriage, at the
airport after spending the summer. While Hank heads back to Chicago to be with
his mother, his father stays behind with Celine and their nine-year-old twin
daughters. Although he’s achieved success as a novelist and is apparently happy
living in Europe, Jessie is despondent that he hasn’t been able to see more of
Hank. Meanwhile, Celine is considering a new “dream” job working for the French
government and strongly resists the idea of moving.
There are a series of extended sequences with Jessie and
Celine—in the car on the way from the airport, at an elegant dinner with
friends, sight-seeing while walking, a night in a hotel room—in which they talk
with each other charmingly, offering the same kind of loving glances, clever
quips and intelligent conversation that we’ve seen before in the first two
films. This time, however, a certain tension is involved and playful dialogue
is sometimes replaced with caustic barbs. Clashes are inevitable.
And when Jessie and Celine finally do clash, the level
of ferocity is devastating to watch. Perhaps it’s a tribute to Richard
Linklater, who once again directed and co-wrote the screenplay (with Delpy and
Hawke), that the intense, emotionally charged third act of “Before Midnight”
feels so elegiac and acutely painful. For the audience who has come to love
these characters, it’s almost as though they are not only breaking up with each
other, but also breaking up with us.
As mesmerizing as their relationship has been, so too,
has been watching the actors grow and mature throughout the series. The underrated
Hawke, trading his boyish good looks for more chiseled adult features, looks
like a younger, still handsome Robert Redford; and the fiery, brilliant Delpy, agelessly
bringing back the curves of the original with her soft features and fair
complexion, is positively radiant.
Like in the previous films, the camera is often setup in
two-shots, capturing both characters’ reactions as well as other details. Linklater’s
long takes are as much about bringing out subtle details in the performances as
they are about establishing important visual motifs—like two still-full wine
glasses and an empty hotel bed, signs here of a romantic night lost and a
relationship on the ropes.
Will we see Jessie and Celine again? It’s hard to say. If not, the ending is left appropriately ambiguous. One thing is certain, Richard Linklater has gone from the independent whiz kid of “Slacker” and “Dazed and Confused” to the polished, highly ambitious architect of “Before Midnight” and the current “Boyhood.” The pride of Austin, Texas is one of the most personal and important American filmmakers working today.
No comments:
Post a Comment