The chemistry is still there, but the magic has long gone. The third (and hopefully final) part of Richard Linklater’s talky romance-drama helmed by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy is mundane and cloying (right down to its predictable closer, which echoes Before Sunrise’s). While the first two films were each imbued with a wistful sense of longing, in Before Midnight, Jessie (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) are finally, gasp, together! And they have two kids! And they’re sick and tired of one another!
It’s been almost a decade since they hooked up following the wonderful cliff-hanger from the last film. Celine and Jessie are now on a holiday in Greece—Jessie has been invited over by a fellow writer for a residency, but Celine is sceptical about the trip. Six weeks in, they’ve decided to lay all cards on the table: Jessie feels remorse for being away from his son, who now lives with his ex-wife, and is thinking of moving back to the US; while Celine has a new job offer back in Paris—cue complications. And as they argue about their individual life journeys (Celine and all her postnatal neuroses following Jessie various book trips outside Paris), we are left wondering, “Who cares?”.
Make no mistake, we’re fans of the series. Linklater’s script, improvised by Hawke and Delpy, still provides some wonderful insights into the transient nature of love, and it’s the natural chemistry between our two leads that drives the film. But where’s the romance? It was precisely that they weren’t together that made the first two films so special, but now that our two protagonists are practically married, all we’re left with are petty complaints about fidelity and all the boring stuff that only parents know and talk about. Why ridicule yourself with such responsibilities?
