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| More peripatetic love in Richard Linklater's Before Midnight. |
«««1/2 Before Midnight. Written by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy & Ethan
Hawke. Directed by Richard Linklater. At selected theaters.
It's been
18 years since Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) spent that night wandering Vienna in Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, talking and flirting and falling in love. Their
yak-fest wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but for many of us that film hit the
sweet spot between intelligence, erotic possibility, and wistfulness. Because
of that, or perhaps because it prefigured the current "hook-up" culture,
Sunrise became one of the touchstone
films of its time. It's not universally nameable, to be sure, but it's one
everybody seems to remember ("You know, that movie where the guy talks the
girl into getting off a train with him? Yeah, that one…")
The
trio continued Jesse and Celine's story in 2004's Before Sunset, reuniting them after circumstances prevented them
from redeeming the promise of their one night together. Jesse was in Paris
promoting a book he wrote on that experience; Celine showed up to get her copy
signed. The result was another dance of postponed desire, picking up pretty
much where it left off nine years before. Except that there was no vague promises
to meet up again in the future: Jesse, married to someone else but smitten as
ever with the mercurial Celine, impulsively skipped his plane home.
Now we
have Before Midnight and what feels
like the final installment in the couple's story. Almost a decade later,
they're now married, with twin daughters. Jesse has moved to Europe, but is
feeling remorse for his intermittent relationship with the son (Seamus
Davey-Kirkpatrick) he left behind. Celine, feeling "fat and forty",
is lovely as ever and every bit as talented at thinking her way out of
happiness. Approaching the end of an idyllic summer-long vacation in Greece,
the consequences of Jesse missing his plane nine years before have returned
with a vengeance. For, as Linklater shows, while it's all well and good to make
sacrifices for the sake of love, sacrifice is rarely just a "one and
done" thing. It keeps having effects that demand fresh sacrifices.
Delpy
and Hawke's names are on the screenplay for good reason: most of this film (and
the other two) are dialog, and the words need to fit the mouths that say them.
Once again, Linklater and his stars have crafted what amounts to a concerto for
two instruments, by turns harmonious, discordant, and funny. In Sunrise their by-play was a dorm-room
discourse, the problems more theoretical than real. Here, Linklater, Delpy and
Hawke adeptly recapture the couple's characteristic rhythm while making their
problems deeper, more urgent. "Sometimes I think I'm breathing oxygen and
you're breathing helium," Celine complain of Jesse's way of deflecting her
frets with humor. "What makes you say that?" he replies in a put-on
falsetto. She's simultaneously charmed and exasperated.
To cop
a line, the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in a world
of super-heroes and giant, rampaging monsters. Or maybe those are the only
kinds of problems that really matter. In this case of Jesse and Celine, another
sequel ("After Midnight?") sounds like a good way to find out.
©
2013 Nicholas Nicastro
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