Butler's Cinema Scene

“BEFORE MIDNIGHT” My rating: B (Now showing at the Rio)

109 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Think of “Before Midnight” as a romantic bouquet laced with poison ivy.

It is, of course, the third chapter of the long-running exploration of love — from director Richard Linklater and actors Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy — that began with “Before Sunrise” in 1995 and continued with “Before Sunset” in 2004.

Once again Hawke and Delpy reprise their roles of Jesse and Celine.  In the first film, which took place overnight in Vienna, the vacationing young American and the French girl met, walked the city, and had a fling (in a park, as I recall) before parting with the rising of the sun.

The second film, taking place a decade later in Paris, found them both in relationships but thrown together once again when Celine attends a reading of Jesse’s novel…a novel inspired by their long-ago night together. They wander Paris until it is time for Jesse to head to the airport…only to find their love is rekindled in what had to be one of the sexiest moments in movie history.

“Before Midnight” finds Jesse and Celine now a couple (though unmarried). It unfolds on a picturesque Greek Isle where they are vacationing with Jesse’s 13-year-old son (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) and their twin daughters (Jennifer and Charlotte Prior).

Anyone who’s gone on a family vacation with young children could predict that the eroticism-charged romance of the first two films would be supplanted by a humdrum reality of kids and responsibility. What you might not anticipate is that before it’s over we’ll be questioning whether Jesse and Celine are going to make it as a couple.

As with the previous films, this is 90 minutes of non-stop talking. The screenplay, a collaboration between the actors and the director, features long exchanges of dialogue, frequently captured in uninterrupted single shots (the remarkably fluid and spectacularly detailed cinematography is by Christos Voudouris).

But what dialogue!!! Like the other films, “Before Midnight” moves effortlessly from casual conversation to deep revelation. Sometimes a scene will turn on a dime, shifting from the humorous to the disconcerting with just a few words.

The issues?  Well, Jesse makes the mistake of wondering aloud if he and Celine shouldn’t move to Chicago so that he can be a greater presence in the life of his son (whose mother sounds like a hateful basket case). Celine sees this a threatening her own ill-defined goals (she’s between jobs and trying to figure out her next step) and symptomatic of Jesse’s guy-centric outlook.

In truth, Delpy goes so deep here that she threatens to make Celine unlikeable…which is not to say the situation she presents is uncommon or unbelievable.

After a long car ride and a relaxing dinner with friends, Jesse and Celine retire to a local hotel where their companions have booked them a room for a little together time. Things start to get sexy…and then a wrong word or gesture or look triggers a new confrontation.

The difference this time is that Celine is topless while launching a lacerating diatribe of Jesse.

As my wife so succinctly summed it up afterwards: “This movie is almost too realistic…it cuts to the bone.”

Like I said, there’s poison ivy in that bouquet.

But also a good deal of truth. “Before Midnight” isn’t as likable as its predecessors. It delivers one wincing gut-shot after another. But has there ever been a film series that so beautifully captures two characters over many years — their physical, intellectual and emotional growth?

I don’t think so. “Before Midnight” is often rough going, but it nevertheless left me wanting to meet these people again a few years down the road.

| Robert W. Butler

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| Robert W. Butler