Movie Review: The Before Series

I have never watched any series like it before. Most love stories have a pretty standard theme that they follow but Before Sunrise was a breath of fresh air and it introduced me to a cinematic world where you could fall in love just by walking around scenic European cities and talking about your deepest thoughts and feelings and fantasies and world views. I was really blown away by the conversations Celine (Delpy) and Jesse (Hawke) had with each other. They were existential, titillating, pseudo-intellectual, interesting and quite out of the ordinary. They fall in love, hard and they act extremely stupid about it. That’s what Before Sunrise tells you: you’re young, stupid, impulsive, beautiful and naive.

Then came Before Sunset. Reality hit them, hard. They weren’t able to meet when they’d decided to and now it was 9 years later. In a sense, Jesse did the most hopelessly romantic thing one could do: write a book about his experience with Celine in the hope that he would find her through it. And he did. Life had dealt very different cards to both of them and now they were no longer naive. They were middle aged and aware of their previous stupidity. Its a whole different experience, this movie, from the first one. Its like a beautiful, soft face with a sad smile, talking about life in a way that you would only if you’d experienced the realities of life. They don’t take the sweet things for granted and know that there’s not much they can do about the bitter things. We see how they both keep prolonging his departure in any way they can. Courting and being courted on borrowed time. It ends in a cliffhanger and Linklater just lets the audience guess whether he actually caught his flight or not.

Before Midnight is an even harder reality check. A reality check on marriage. Life is beautiful during new relationships but is it also beautiful 10 years into a relationship? You have now realized that the person next to you is not an angel, far from it, in fact. Now, the very thing that made you fall for them is what drives you crazy. How are you supposed to love them then? As Before Midnight answers these questions, it takes you around southern Greece where they’re on holiday with their children. Even as it tackles difficult topics, it is slow, erotic, beautiful and introspective.

That’s the magic of Linklater’s movies. He’s able to infuse beauty, peace and silence into his scenes and a certain softness that’s omnipresent, no matter what the scene may be depicting.

Thank you, Richard Linklater.