Some Thoughts on Before Midnight

I have now seen Richard Linklater's Before Midnight in the context in which it was meant.  It is a film that I have seen before and reviewed, giving it the much coveted four stars.  This was without much knowledge of the history of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy).  It is just a good movie, and there is no way around that.  It is much different, and yet a lot of the same, as the first two movies.

One way in which it is different, is that it envelopes the directing style of the first two film's unique setup and mashes them together.  We get the long takes that we were treated with in the second film, along side the edited and condensed feeling of the first movie.  While music has been mostly absent, and yet crucial, to the series, we finally have a movie here with a score, courtesy of Graham Reynolds.  And, like the first two films, it has its themes set in love, but this time it takes it to a whole new level.

Love in a spontaneous instant, the thrill of the moment and surrendering to the magical escapism of 'what could have been' is what the first movie is all about.  It is seizing the moment, living in the day, and having the understanding that you did something that you could have very well regretted for every single day of your life afterwards.  It is beauty in youth.  It is the acceptance of the finite, and whether or not having what will be eventually lost was worth what life would have been like having never taken the chance.

That is the first film in a nutshell.  It is told with such boldness, naivety, and extremes.  It is the formation of the Hollywood Prince and Princess story, but with much more realistic and down to earth characters.  This is the version of passion and romance that is tried and true, and it is overly done in so many films.  The magic of love, the palpitations of it.  It is the bended knee and the magical night that will forever be remembered.

In the second movie, love is viewed differently.  It is overcast with regret of what could have been.  Even though these are characters that took a chance, they are characters who are paying for it.  They have been branded permanently by their decision to follow spontaneity and their hearts.  Their concepts of relationships are forever changed, as their formative years experienced a connection that would surely mould the future for anyone.  What they are left with, after the romance, is a view of relationships that are opposite each other.  No longer is it the dreamy visage of someone swooping in with flowers and charm.  It is something much different than that for each character.

And then we have the version of love that is found in Before Midnight.  It is the version of love that books are not written about.  It is the version of love that children are not warned of.  It is the version of love that destroys relationships and causes divorce.  It is the true version of a committed relationship, the hardships that come along with it, and the pain that it would take to see things through.

Linklater does not hold back at all in Before Midnight.  This is not a date movie.  It is not the fantasy that would carry a Sandra Bullock or a Julia Roberts.  There is no Prince Charming.  There is no magic kiss.  There are only two people who have been together for nine years, and the fact that they are comfortable with each other, the force that unleashes the bridles of the mouth and can cause instant pain and regret of words.

It is serious stuff.  We are with a couple on what could easily be the very last night of their once romantic relationship.  We learn that just as guns can be used for promoting either peace or war, so can the mouth.  When you have been with someone for a long period of time, there is a lot that can go unsaid.  It doesn't mean that those things vanish.  They remain, and they build up over time.  All it takes is a breaking of the seal to unleash all of those thoughts, fears, and regrets from the past.

The point of this movie is to show what happens when the romance is gone.  When what you are left with is the decayed sense of butterflies in the stomach, yearning for them to reappear and resigning yourself to the fact that they may be gone for good.  This is love.  It is not packaged in a heart-shaped box, nor is it delivered with roses.  It comes with the devastating knowledge that the honeymoon is over and what you are left with is being paired up with a fallible human being.  This is not what sells tickets on Valentine's Day, but it is what people all over the world truly live with.

This vision of love shows the pain, sacrifice, and work that need to go along with keeping it together and working.  One might ask, why bother making it work if it takes so much energy?  Well, the fact of the matter is that if you leave it behind, you are leaving behind all of the good things that come along with it.  Linklater is keen to show those elements as well, in scenes where Celine and Jesse talk back and forth about life as they walk from their host home to a hotel where they will be spending the night without the kids.  Linklater shows that those moments are the ones that make it worth while, and he points out that they are worth fighting over.

When it is easy to allow something to die, it is difficult to fight for its life.  That is what the main characters must do, or choose is worthwhile, in order for them to have love.  Once again, this isn't portrayed as the type of love that appears on romantic cards, but one that is rooted in knowledge of another person.  It sounds boring, but that is the essence of it.

It is impossible to believe that the feeling of butterflies will always exist.  That you will constantly be swept off of your feet by someone for the rest of your life.  That is the version of relationships that we are sold by mass media, and it is that version of love (and the endless pursuit of that love) that can cause people to fade apart and never be truly happy.  Love is support, but it is also pain.

That pain can hurt the most when you are staring down the barrel a doomed relationship, or at least what may seem that way.  The script, written by Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy, shows the reality of properly dealing with that hurt.  It is what has kept my marriage together, and it is what keeps many together.  That is not giving up.  Just when things seem like they are at their worst, one must let pride stand aside and make another effort.  It can feel the equivalent of conceding that you were wrong, but love shouldn't take score of who was right and who wasn't.  Love should take a second to take a deep breath, compose yourself, and do what you can to get through the maelstrom, even if it means more hurt.

That is the love that is on display in Before Midnight, and it is that love that should resinate with viewers more than Runaway Bride.