Ethan Hawke
Julie Delpy

Richard Linklater
Ethan Hawke
Julie Delpy

109 mins.
Drama, Romance
June 14, 2013

Rated R for sexual content/nudity and language. (MPAA)

“Before Midnight,” the third film in director Richard Linklater’s film series (after “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset”) starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, is probably the best of the series. I liked the introduction of additional characters in this film. They actually contributed to the dialogue and the story. That was refreshing.

However, this film is still largely about Delpy’s and Hawke’s characters: I just don’t care much about them when they’re alone. I like watching them interact with others as a couple and individually, instead: One of the best scenes in this film is the extended scene with them at the dining table exchanging ideas with others (their host who’s a widower, his sister-in-law who’s a widow, and two other couples, one around their age and married, the other younger and unmarried). There’s a beauty to that scene that I wish their scenes alone would emulate. That scene contains poetry, but their dialogue is prose. Now, it’s expert prose, but why would I want to watch two people talk in a film for an hour or more without any poetry? That dining table scene reminded me of “Sideways,” if “Sideways” didn’t have extreme beat changes (shifts from moment to moment) or darkly comical characters.

Another scene I liked is between Hawke’s character and his son. As I watched that scene, I could imagine what it would be like to be his son. I would likely be embarrassed by my dad’s slightly disheveled, youngish appearance. But deep down, I would probably like it.

The writing and the acting throughout the film are well-done. In its best moments, the dance between those two is effortless. Also, the way that the dialogue echoes previous conversations or events in the film is masterful. Perhaps this is because director Richard Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke are the writers.

But here’s the main problem: This film accomplishes what it wants to accomplish … and then continues for no reason. It should be 20 to 25 minutes shorter (i.e. 80 minutes in length). I get it already. That may work for people who see themselves in these characters – the two main characters, that is. And there are people who do (almost every major critic, it seems). But for me, this film devolves right along with those two main characters. They should lose their way and then find each other again, without the film following suit.

Again, “Before Midnight” is a little better than the previous two films in this series. (Each film seems to be an improvement on its predecessor.) But it still needs an edit.

Verdict: OK to Somewhat Good

About: (Source: beforemidnight)

An American father, JESSE, (Ethan Hawke) is seeing off his son HANK (Seamus Davey–Fitzpatrick) at the Kalamata Airport in Greece. Hank’s returning to his mother and life in the U.S. after spending the “best summer ever” with Jesse and his family. The middle–schooler is more composed than his fortyish father, who hovers anxiously as their separation draws near.

Geography weighs heavily on Jesse. Outside the airport, he rejoins his family: CELINE (Julie Delpy) and their young twin daughters ELLA and NINA (Jennifer and Charlotte Prior). As they drive through the austerely beautiful rocky hillsides of Messinia, Jesse and Celine talk—about living so far from Hank, about her career as an environmentalist and hopes for a new job, about the swirl of ancient and modern Greece around them. Jesse hints at wanting to move back to America from their home in Paris, but Celine has done her U.S. time—they lived in New York for a spell—and has no wish to return. Their long history together bubbles between them.

Jesse’s a successful novelist, and they’re in Greece at a writer’s retreat, staying in the bucolic country villa of an older expat writer, PATRICK (Walter Lassally). Jesse’s given to flights of creative fancy which charm the assembled company, warmly hospitable Greek couples, but Celine—whose own past has played a starring role in Jesse’s semi–autobiographical novels—is perhaps a bit weary of serving as alluring French muse to Jesse’s fiction career.

As a treat, their Greek friends have gifted Jesse and Celine with a night at a luxurious seaside hotel while they babysit the twins. Feeling the undercurrent of friction between them, Celine wants to beg off, but their friends insist. They set off on foot through the spectacular countryside, meandering through meadows and villages, enjoying each others’ company, talking, teasing, debating, flirting.

What does a longterm couple do in a sleek hotel room besides throw off their worries, responsibilities, and clothes and make love? But for Jesse and Celine, realities intrude: the weight of children, work, ambitions, disappointments; the ebb and flow of romantic love ; the strains of an evolving, deepening relationship. Their idyllic night tests them in unexpected ways.

Jesse and Celine first met in their twenties in BEFORE SUNRISE (1995), reunited in their thirties in BEFORE SUNSET (2004), and now, in BEFORE MIDNIGHT, they face the past, present and future; family, romance, and love. Before the clock strikes midnight, their story again unfolds.