Review: BEFORE MIDNIGHT

BEFORE MIDNIGHT  (ROMANTIC DRAMA)
*Four out of Four Stars*
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
R for sexual content/nudity and language.
Verdict:  Jesse's and Celine's love story comes to its third chapter almost 20 years after it first began (in both the film and real time), as their relationship is strained under the pressure of middle age, parent and spouse responsibilities and unrealized ideals.  Darker and more ambitious than its predecessors, it is no less fulfilling, beautiful, intelligent and emotional; continuing one of the greatest romances to ever grace the screen.

It's been nearly twenty years since a young American man named Jesse (Ethan Hawke) approached a young Parisian woman named Celine (Julie Delpy) aboard a train traveling through Austria and convinced her to spend a night with him getting to know one another in Vienna in the summer of 1994, in the 1995 release, BEFORE SUNRISE.  They promised to meet again in six months, but nine years later, in 2004's BEFORE SUNSET, we learned that the meeting never happened when one was unable to show, but Jesse wrote a fictionalized account of it in a novel, and Celine showed up at one of his book signings in a Paris bookshop, after which we learned that he now had a son and a disintegrating marriage, and she was trapped in a string of bad relationships and frustrating realizations.  The last time we saw them, the couple was sitting in Celine's apartment in Paris, and Jesse had chosen to miss his flight.
If you're familiar with and have seen those films, I don't need to convince you to see BEFORE MIDNIGHT; I only need to say that it does not disappoint at all.  If you haven't seen BEFORE SUNRISE or BEFORE SUNSET, you should; they are "must-see" films if the term ever described a movie, but in fact, you do not have to have seen them to see BEFORE MIDNIGHT.  Those first two film, in relation to this third, could be considered backstory; interesting, but unnecessary to understand the plot or the characters.
But as was the way before, there really isn't much "plot" to BEFORE MIDNIGHT, but the characters are in full force, completely carrying the whole weight of the film by themselves as they pretty much converse their way through the entire film.  It picks up another nine years after BEFORE SUNSET, and Jesse has long ago left his broken marriage and is on the worst of terms with his ex-wife, but remains close (as much as possible) with his now-teenage son, who's leaving after spending the summer just as the film opens.  Jesse is now in a committed long-term relationship with Celine, with twin daughters, and the whole family is vacationing in Greece.  Celine is environmental activist, but with feelings of futility so she's now considering a government position.  Whereas the previous films had a sense of urgency driven by choices that demand making, MIDNIGHT finds Jesse and Celine having made their choices now living the consequences, for better or worse.
When they were young, they spoke of romantic ideals and intellectual thinking; there was a lot of romantic projection, but dreams have since come true, including the parts that they hadn't considered when they were young.  Both have aged into their forties, with all the insecurities that accompany that time of life, and this film's showcase piece is an explosive argument that their feature-length conversation descends into in a hotel room which was intended to be the setting for a night of romance.  Not to spoil anything, but it isn't a depressing film either, and as they did before, it closes out with warm-hearted hope, but this time even in the face of real-world adversity.

Now on the third chapter after eighteen and a half years, this criminally-underseen independent romantic saga has lost nothing; using dialogue in ways that have been lost to the rest of cinema, to express powerful and fascinating ideas and emotions in a strikingly honest, forward and consistent manner.  Richard Linklater, who directed the film, co-wrote the film with his stars, as with the previous installments; an highly ingenius innovation that allows Delpy and Hawke to have a strong input to their respective characters, making them far more consistent and honest and introspective than the average movie character, while Linklater provides a consistent vision that binds the elements together.
BEFORE MIDNIGHT is a completely no-holds-barred pulpit of human confession, feeling and open pondering; more raw and bare than almost any other film you're likely to see this year.  More cleanly tied off than its predecessors, it doesn't exactly demand for a follow-up, but by the time another nine years have passed, if the team gets back together for a 2022 release, I see no reason why a fourth installment in the romantic journeyings of Celine and Jesse wouldn't be an enormously welcome development.  As it stands for now, BEFORE MIDNIGHT is the best film of the year thus far.