Before Midnight

Source: movieline.com via Riana on Pinterest

Before Midnight was the most anticipated movie on my Sundance roster, and it did not disappoint. The third chapter of Richard Linklater's Before series brings back Celine and Jesse (Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke) this time in Greece. It's been nineteen years since they first met on that train. They're still the same people, reacting to different events. Growing older. Adjusting to the passage of time differently in their early 40s than they did in their early 30s (I was slightly surprised this one came with more humor than the first two films combined, surprised and pleased). 

Spoilers after the jump...

Jesse stayed in Paris, and though there were 2 years in New York to be with his son, the couple have made Paris their home and procreated with (adorable) bilingual twins.

I love what Slate said in their review of the film:

Dialogue between the principles, as expected, is pitch-perfect. But there’s something new here: the language of marital battle, which rises to a ferocity comparable only to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But if you can take it, and if you know you love your partner, but find yourself frustrated and angry nonetheless, this film cannot be missed. In a manner arguably unequaled in film, Before Midnight captures exactly just what makes it so infuriatingly hard to stay in any relationship.

There's a scene where Celine and Jesse are watching the sunset and she says, "Still there?" over and over until finally she says, "Gone." At first, I thought in the quiet of their company, she was asking if he was still there. If they were.

There was no Q&A after the screening I went to, but I read an interview where Julie Delpy says, "Now the three of us are like an old couple." To which Linklater adds, "a dysfunctional couple" and she rejoins, "the capacity to argue forever."

Approaching perfection is right.