When Before Sunset was released in 2004, a door to a sequel was left open. This would result in Before Midnight. In 2011, Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy started discussing a third film in the franchise. The trio wrote the movie in early 2012 and filmed it that summer. It was completed by September with a budget of less than three million. Keeping with the nine-year gap between entries, Before Midnight was released in 2013. The film follows Jesse and Celine, now a couple, on vacation in Greece with their family, while they experience marital woes. Before I go any further, I want to issue a formal spoiler alert.
What I appreciate about this film’s storytelling is that it may be a direct sequel to Before Sunset, but it also feels like a direct sequel to Before Sunrise. There are many callbacks to both films. If I had to choose one theme to represent the entire trilogy, it would be time. Before Sunrise was an exploration of the present and a speculation of the future. Before Sunset was a reflection of the past and an exploration of the present. Before Midnight is an exploration of the past, present, and future. While the previous two films had to take place in compressed timelines, this film doesn’t. Yes, it’s titled Before Midnight, and the main action mostly takes place on the same day; the time compression isn’t as crucial to the story. As a writer, Jesse is obsessed with time and perception, often exploring both themes in his novels. Since the last time we saw him, he has written two books: “That Moment,” a sequel to his story, “This Moment,” about what happened to the characters inspired by him and Celine. He also wrote a third novel with an incredibly long title that nobody seems to have read.
It’s been nine years since we last saw our two leads and eighteen years since we first saw them. Celine, a mother of twins, has some sagging body parts and wrinkles around her eyes, yet she is still beautiful. Jesse has long, unkempt hair, the fullest goatee we’ve seen him with thus far, and a bit of a dad bod. Despite that, he’s still a subjectively good-looking dude, and they are a handsome couple. Of course, with the passing of time, they both worry about the inevitable – sagging body parts and graying hair. They both have insecurities about their looks. Celine wonders if Jesse would still invite her to explore now that she’s on a train. On the other hand, as mentioned, Jesse explores his insecurities through writing.
Additionally, each of them has some sort of anxiety regarding the passage of time. Celine is in a state where she feels every moment of her life is either one she has lived through or a dream. Jesse, on the other hand, his anxiety that is relatable to most people. When he was younger, he wished time would go by faster, but now that he’s older, he wishes time would slow down. They both lament on more than one occasion, “I can’t believe I’m 41,” as if 41 was a significant turning point in one’s life.
I believe a smaller theme in the film is the relationship between men and women. Jesse is invited by Patrick, another renowned writer, to his home in Greece as one of three prolific writers. At a scholarly dinner with three couples, they begin discussing the relationship between men and women. They say women are more nurturing and men are more hooked on sex. Celine says that Jesse writes about the intimate details well, and anyone who reads the book will know what it is like to fuck her (her words). One can pick up on a bit of resentment there, but Jesse denies the books are like that. Another couple tells the story of male and female coma patients. The story goes that when a female patient wakes from a coma, and you tell her she’s been out for a while, the first thing she does is ask about someone else. According to the same story, if you tell a male patient he’s been in a coma for a while, the first thing he does is look at his cock. Of course, it’s all meant as a joke, but there could be some truth. Patrick, the wise older man, finally drops the wisdom. He says that as we get older, men and women have a hard time hearing each other. Men slowly lose the ability to listen to high pitches, and women lose the ability to hear low pitches. In a film where there’s a breakdown of communication, this story could not be more apt.
Perhaps it’s because it’s been eighteen years since we first saw them, but the two main characters are as fleshed out as they’ve ever been. The first scene of the film features Jesse taking his thirteen-year-old son, Hank, through the airport to board a plane back to Chicago. You can tell just from the interaction in the one scene between father and son that Jesse truly loves Hank. When he suggests visiting Hank in Chicago, Jesse is shot down. Hank tells him that his mom wouldn’t like that, and he gets stressed out when they fight. That sentence is like a dagger in his heart. You can see the heartbreak as he watches his son walk away, past security, and board the plane. Jesse eventually tells Celine that he misses Hank and feels like a lousy father. Jesse had always said he would never separate himself from his son, but gave up that security to pursue Celine. Although he loves Celine and the girls, he feels really shitty about the situation he put Hank in. Jesse is extra worried as he starts high school that he’s missed a lot of time with his son and that the next four years will go too fast. He even makes a comment to Celine about possibly moving to Chicago for his high school years so they can all be together. Despite his having to return, Hank says that the time he spent with Jesse was the best summer of his life.
Celine is happy as a mother of twins, in a relationship with Jesse, and working at a non-profit she enjoys. She is also a great step-mother to Henry and loves her stepson. She’s also much more assertive and speaks her mind more than in the previous two films. She’s resistant when Jesse brings up the idea of moving to Chicago because she doesn’t want to uproot the twins; she has a job she likes, but she also vehemently dislikes Henry’s mom. Because she considers herself a strong, independent woman, she worries about becoming a domesticated housewife if they have to move. This is a weird sentence to type, but I feel like she is also hornier, yet much more in control of her sex life in this film. In the first film, they sleep together and talk about sex vs. romance, but the sex is implicit, not explicit. In the second film, she definitely displays her sexuality with her backless dress and joking, yet seductive dancing in her apartment. In a pivotal hotel scene (more on that later), she instigates sex between her and Jesse. She even takes her top off, exposing her breasts, something she didn’t do in the previous films. Again, more on this scene later.
By the time the film starts, the couple has been together for nine years. They’re not officially married, much to their daughters’ chagrin, but they act like they are. They do like to tease each other like any couple, but sometimes it goes too far. The teasing has the potential to turn volatile. Celine jokes that she’s “married” to a teenage American boy. She also likes to tease Jesse about how he doesn’t know how to cut his hair or shave. I find this ironic since he had a goatee in each of the other films. Jesse can only take so much teasing before he feels the need to say something to her. She gets defensive and tells Jesse that he’s taking it too personally. Then Jesse accuses her of trying to start shit to make him mad, and an argument breaks out. Usually, these end almost as fast as they start.
Now comes the hotel room scene. A couple from the Greek island rented a hotel room for Jesse and Celine to use for the night so they could have a getaway, while the couple watched the twins. The scene starts as normal as expected. They talk a little bit about their past and the train ride all those years ago. Then, it turns to sex. Celine lowers her top to reveal her breasts, and she slides her underwear from under her skirt and hops onto the bed. They kiss, and Jesse plays with her breasts; however, Celine’s phone rings. She goes to answer it, just in case it’s an emergency. It turns out to be Henry, who was calling to say he was arriving in Chicago but forgot his science project. She assures Henry they will mail it back. As she’s on the phone, Jesse gestures for her to give him the phone. She quickly hangs up and tells her, “Good luck with your mom.” Celine fills Jesse in and goes back to bed. Before she can resume kissing him, Jesse tells her that it was the second time that day when he wanted to talk to his son, and he dismissed her. She downplays his concerns, stating it wasn’t a big deal and that he was in a hurry and had to go. He also mentions the comment she made about his mom. With that, Celine backs away from him.
Jesse says the comment was unnecessary and might confuse Hank, leading him to dislike his mom. Celine calls Jesse’s ex-wife a cunt (again, her words). She reminds him of their history. It is revealed that she lived in New York with Jesse for a while when they were first together. When she became pregnant with the twins, her pregnancy was deemed high risk, so she wanted to give birth in Paris with her family. As Celine tells it, while she was in Paris recuperating from a labor that nearly killed her, the ex-wife moved Henry from New York to Chicago to make it difficult for her and Jesse to see him. With Henry in Chicago and the two of them in New York with no legal recourse, they decided to move back to Paris full-time. She understands Jesse wanting to be with Hank, but finally voices how selfish it would be to uproot the girls and not see her family, just so he can be closer to his son and ex-wife, who hates them both. Jesse reminds her that they live in Paris because of her, and that he doesn’t see his son or his family in Texas as much as he’d like. With that, he puts her top back up, her underwear on, and the two go into full argument mode.
I can’t remember every single thing that’s brought up because there is a lot in a short amount of time. There were accusations of cheating on both ends. However, one stands out as an accelerant of the argument. Earlier, Jesse was recognized upon check-in at the hotel and asked to sign copies of his books. The fact that the books are already about her bothers Celine. When the hotel manager asks her to sign the book too, recognizing her as the main character, she becomes mortified. One of the things she yells during the argument is that Jesse can no longer write about her or the girls in any of his books. Again, I can’t remember each thing that’s said, but a lot of words are spoken. It becomes a verbal sparring match. All the frustration they’ve harbored over the years has come to the surface. Celine leaves the hotel room and re-enters twice before going for a third and final time. In a way, this is the moment the two previous films have been building to. This argument is foreshadowed in the first film when Celine and Jesse discuss hating each other if they get married. After eighteen years and three films where you hope their love succeeds, this looks to be the end.
The last scene in the film takes place in the hotel’s outdoor restaurant. Celine sits alone when Jesse approaches her. He pretends to be a time traveler pretending to have a note from her 82-year-old self claiming that night will contain the best sex of her life. Celine is initially unamused, so Jesse drops the act. Jesse delivers an impassioned speech about how he loves her, Hank, and the girls more than anything and would do anything to keep them together. He reassures her that their love may not be perfect, but it’s real. After a moment, Celine decides to join Jesse’s roleplay. He smiles as she plays along. The final shot is them talking and goofing around as the camera pulls back and fades to black. It’s a hope for a reconciliation between the two. It’s not a guarantee. Throughout the trilogy, nothing has been a guarantee for these two. The hope of reconciliation, though, is more potent than not having it, and it’s more real.
The film ended on a good note. I’ll be happy if they leave this film alone, but I would also be okay with a sequel (assuming the quality stays consistent). They already missed the 2022 release window, but if they skip ahead another nine years, they could make the 2031 release window. I feel like they are running out of generic times. What would the fourth installment be called, Before Twilight? No, that sounds like a vampire movie. Anyway, I appreciate how Richard Linklater played with time as an element over these three films, which would come full circle with his next movie, Boyhood. This may be a controversial opinion, but I think this may just be my favorite cinematic trilogy. I know most people would probably tell you Lord of the Rings is the best, but I’m not a fantasy guy. If Toy Story had remained a trilogy, I would have had no problem declaring it my favorite cinematic trilogy. Still, because they decided to make Toy Story 4, this trilogy now holds that distinction in my book.
When this film was released, it was a critical and commercial success. It grossed $23.3 million at the box office, the highest in the trilogy. Like Sunset, the film was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2014 Academy Awards, losing to Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave. I may have to add a fourth movie post in the next few years. If I don’t, I’m happy too. Thank you for taking the time to read these posts. I appreciate your continued support.