By Amanda Ack, Film Critic
Only a truly brave filmmaker can put unlikeable characters onscreen and get away with it.
Luckily, Richard Linklater is just such a filmmaker, and his Before Midnight benefits greatly from it.
With help from co-writers and stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, he creates a film that is by turns warmly sweet and bitingly sour.
Before Midnight, the sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), follows “Céline” (Delpy) and “Jessie” (Hawke), who met 18 years ago on a train in Vienna, reconnected nearly a decade later, and are settling into early middle age as a couple.
At first, it seems the two are still happy together, raising their twin girls in France and living what appears to be a life filled with humor and romance.
Yet, as we watch them grappling with their own issues – Céline with a difficult career decision, Jessie with his guilt over living so far from his son from a previous marriage – we quickly sense the bitterness and discontent that threatens their relationship.
By the movie’s end, it is unclear whether or not their love will be a lasting one.
What’s so wonderful about watching this story unfold is that Linklater and company aren’t interested in making us like Céline and Jessie, or hope that they end up together, for that matter.
Hawke’s character, Jessie, so charmingly boyish in the previous films, has turned into something of a petulant man-child, with overblown ideas and an ego to match.
As for the luminous Ms. Delpy, her Céline is a ticking time bomb of hostility and resentment, ready to explode at any moment.
Separately, these characters might be too grating to watch.
Together, they are fascinating.
It is a testament to the quality of the writing and the strength of the acting that we care enough to stick around to see what becomes of the couple.
Perhaps the most brutally honest film about relationships I’ve ever seen, Before Midnight is a must-see for those who like their romance with a side of cynicism.
It takes us on a journey that runs the gamut of emotions, leaving us perhaps a little disenchanted, but not without hope.
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