Before Midnight is a love story that gets better with age
By Chris Tookey
|
Before Midnight (15)
Verdict: Talky, but it's good talk
Rating:
Maturity: Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in Before Midnight
Like Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing, Before Midnight is a hugely welcome antidote to summer blockbusters.
Fans of the first two films in this series, Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), will need no encouragement to see the third. This is one of the few sequels for which the cliche ‘eagerly awaited’ is truly applicable.
Before Sunrise was all about the sexual attraction and culture clash between American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Frenchwoman Celine (Julie Delpy) who met on a train in Europe.
I found the young Celine over-earnest and humourless, and Jesse charmless and bland.
Before Sunset reunited them nine years on, with her by then an environmentalist and him a successful novelist because of the book he wrote about their love affair.
This time, they were much more battered by life, and the love story about them falling for each other all over again was one of the most delightful, realistic and subtly subversive in years.
Nine years further on, the pair are married, living in Paris but on holiday in Greece. Needless to say, they are still arguing.
He is racked with guilt by his failure to be a proper father to his teenage son by his first marriage and would like to move to Chicago. She has a flourishing career in Paris and feels they are drifting apart, despite their twin daughters.
Young viewers may find it hard to empathise with the problems of a middle-aged couple for whom love is no longer as ardent as it used to be. The impatient will dismiss it as depressing and talky.
However, the talk is refreshingly articulate, and will strike a chord with audiences over the age of 30.
Celine is a glass-half-empty person, determined to look on the dark side of everything. Jesse is more optimistic and easy-going. They make a good pair, but you can see why they quarrel.
Despite their me-generation values, in the end, you can’t help but like these people. It’s a delightful shock to walk into a cinema and find intelligence, wit and emotional maturity.
- Firefighters destroy nests as hornets kill 41 people in ...
- Dog determined to make friends with boy with Down syndrome
- Lindsey Vonn puts a live squirrel on Tiger Woods
- Shocking moment car ploughs through crowd of bikers.
- Jessica Zelinske poses for Playboy's hot housewives spread
- Dramatic dashcam footage captures fatal freeway shooting
- Mother plans to boost bra size to triple-Q
- Elizabeth Smart says she was her captors' 'slave and object'
- US CAPITOL SHOOTING: Moment police draw guns on driver
- Moment POLICE CAR slams into barricade at Capitol Hill,...
- CCTV: Postal worker's unusual delivery method
- Never before seen footage from Black Hawk Down
- Revealed: FIVE off-duty NYPD officers were among the bikers...
- Man who set himself on fire at National Mall dies of...
- 'Boredom, hunger and rape': Elizabeth Smart describes her...
- Bear strikes up unlikely friendship with a WOLF as...
- Heart-breaking pictures that document 'courageous'...
- Security alert after mystery drone aircraft crashes into...
- 'She thought she was Prophet of Stamford and Obama was...
- Unseen pictures give behind-the-scenes glimpse of JFK and...
- Gurkha is shot and hit by grenade then takes on Taliban with...
- 'Instead of tea I got a mouth of bacon!': TGI Friday's staff...
- Elizabeth Smart and her Scottish husband reveal they want to...
- Mother, 33, who posed for Playboy after her boss approved...
johnosullivan, London, United Kingdom, 3 months ago
Amazing film and Delpy is brilliant