Before Midnight and Living Life in a Straight Line

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Almost 20 years ago, we first met Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) in Before Sunrise in Vienna when Jesse runs into Celine on a train. The two begin to talk, there are obvious sparks, and they proceed to spend the whole evening and night together, but part ways in the morning. 10 years later, we see them again in Before Sunset when Jesse (now a successful author) is on a book tour stop in Paris and Celine comes to meet him again. Once again, they talk for the entire duration of the film and the film ends at Celine's apartment as the sun goes down. The ending is a bit ambiguous, but we can guess that the two finally decide to come together as a couple. 

And now, almost 20 years later, Before Midnight confirms where they left off. Jesse and Celine are together, they have twin girls, and Jesse's 14 year old son lives in Chicago with his ex-wife while he lives in Paris. The entire film follows Jesse and Celine as they begin vacation on the beautiful Peloponnese coast in Greece (some seriously beautiful scenery here) with some friends and take the first evening to walk to a hotel in the town nearby where they plan to spend a romantic evening. In true director Richard Linklater fashion and like the other films, Before Midnight consists of nothing but all the characters conversing, but there is never a dry moment. Every conversation is highly interesting, and yet feels very natural and real for all the characters and not just fashioned for the audience's enjoyment. Linklater is in top form in the masterfully handled long shots and directing of Hawke and Delpy who deliver fantastic performances. Linklater is definitely inspired by Woody Allen's unique ability to capture the awkwardness and complexity of human interaction, and he takes it one step further in the meaningful content that can be found in each one of the conversations we witness.

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Most of all, Before Midnight demonstrates some of the most emotionally taught situations of the trilogy. Almost the entire last third of the film is Jesse and Celine having a terrible fight in their hotel room during a time that was supposed to be care-free and romantic. It's a very awkward and humbling thing to witness, especially for fans of the trilogy who have literally seen Jesse and Celine grow together and have what many would consider a sort of magical romance that was meant to be. But now, faced with the reality of nearing middle-age and the grind of every day life never letting off, the two question over and over, is it possible to stay together, in love, for the rest of their lives?

This is a question everyone asks themselves. Whether you're in a relationship currently, have before, or have never been in one, we all wonder the same thing. As we hear from a conversation regarding Jesse's idea for the plot for his next novel, Time and Perception play a huge role in the film's themes. Time is all about thinking literally. The 20 years ago when Jesse and Celine first met seems like a long time, but the next 40 years that they could potentially spend together is even more daunting. Perception is about how we each understand the passing of time and how we adapt to the gaps between the good times and the bad and how we view the other as a result. As Jesse says at one point, maybe we each need to spend more time figuring ourselves out before we commit to another person. But as we all know, no one ever figures themselves out because we all continue to change with the passing of time, and with it our perception changes. Linklater and co-writers Hawke and Delpy seem to be arguing that the real struggle with relationships occurs with keeping a clear and realistic perception of change.

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Along with this idea, we come across a theme I have come across before in literature. Jesse and Celine constantly refer to the early days of their relationship, along with the two that we witnessed in the previous films. They wish to return to how they felt then, what they experienced, and also to be able to fix the things they think they messed up on. Ultimately, what they want is to live life in a circle. To repeat all the things that brought them love and happiness before. And with this, they realize that their relationship was not something destined to be, not like a "fairy tale" as Jesse says at one point. It might have seemed so at first, but it becomes apparent that Jesse could easily move to the US to be with his son and leave Celine in Paris. Their relationship is something they have to make work. It's a choice. 

It's also a matter of give and take. As Milan Kundera says in his (brilliant) novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (which I love to quote endlessly), "we demand something from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him/her demand-free and asking for nothing but his/her company." Part of the give and take is love, but it also includes moving, choosing a different job than we'd like, taking on extra responsibility, and a whole host of other things. To borrow from another fantastic film, as a character in Away We Go says, you have to be so much better than you ever thought you could be. 

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Another part of this circumstance and arguably at the root of it is the reality that life is lived in a straight line and not a circle. This seems stupidly obvious, but I don't think it is. There's a reason why people naturally hate and/or fear change. "Therein lies the whole of man's plight," says Kundera, "human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition." So, Time is the culprit in this exhausting search for sustained happiness. 

In accordance with this theme, the topic of death also plays a noticeable role in the film's conversations. In a particularly poignant moment, one of Jesse and Celine's older friends recounts how she sometimes finds herself beginning to forget her dead husband and it's like losing him all over again. But then she stops and makes herself remember each detail of his face, his voice, his walk. In this moment, we find an example of the Time/Perception dilemma. Time can make us forget, but Perception can help us remember and continue to hold on to and build up the things that made us happy and that will make us happy. The right Perception and effort can help us try to achieve some level of repetition and circle in life. It's about choosing to keep the burdens that we chose to take upon ourselves days, weeks, months, years ago (for more discussion on the theme of burdens, see my post To the Wonder and the Other). 

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Before Midnight is not as bleak as Kundera in this regard. It confronts the difficulties of a relationship and does not shy away from the bitter, dark moments, but if offers a hope for the future. A future that is still uncertain, but one where the couple is willing to try and remember what they had before and not avoid the task (or "burden") in favor of what Kundera calls "lightness." And of course, with this comes the unknowable future. Who knows what could happen? The present is always passing, after all, it can't be bad for ever. Of course, I realize that there are many complicated relationships that were never well thought out in the first place and many that need to end. But at the same time, there's something delightfully scary about not knowing what's going to happen tomorrow, and Before Midnight embraces the ambiguity of this situation. Over all, Before Midnight offers a very valuable example and is an extremely well crafted film and a wonderful end to a great trilogy. Unless Linklater decides to give us another film years in the future. We can always hope!