Before Midnight (2013)

R for lots of language, some sexuality, and a long scene involving nudity.  Like the rest of the Before trilogy, Linklater and the actors create worlds around people talking frankly.  Because these characters are the way that they are, this often means that conversations meander to sexual topics, often with the intention of appearing somewhat raw.  This is the one of the three that is potentially the most R-rated, whatever that means.

DIRECTOR:  Richard Linklater

I want to write all of the time.  I also never want to write, so I guess that first sentence is untrue.  I just had one of those moments where I realized that I have time to write and I really wanted something to write, so I finished the movie that I was slowly working my way through a bit early.  The worst part is, there's a good chance that this blog won't get finished until Tuesday.  I suppose we'll find out later, won't we?  Anyway, I started this trilogy with my wife on board.  She didn't really like it that much, but it also was one of those examples of '90s Linklater.  It was romantic enough and that was enough to try the second movie in the trilogy, Before Sunset.  My wife straight up didn't like that one.  I was still on board.  I feel a bit bummed because I wish we finished the trilogy together.

But then again, I don't.  I'm a big fan of This is 40, an underrated Judd Apatow film.  This is 40 would come out a year after Before Midnight and that would make the most depressing double-feature about marriage in people's 40s.  I'm in my 40s.  In fact, like This is 40, I'm exactly 40.  I love This is 40 because it is earnest and funny.  It says a lot about the frustrations about being in the exact scenario me and a lot of people are in.  But This is 40, for all of its commentaries about the frustrations of marriage, is at least a celebration of love. The movie shows them at their worst, but also shows them at their best. It may leave a little bit of a fairy tale in there with how the movie ends, but I don't think that Apatow's ever claiming that his marriage is terrible.  Linklater is hitting a lot of the same beats.  He has the same outlook about fighting and marriage when we are where we are.  It's the frustration of kids and family and romantic love taking a back seat to responsibilities.  But I don't get much optimism out of Linklater.  Before I have some people almost typing things (very few people ever argue in the comments about my reads on things), I know that Before Midnight heavily implies that Jesse and Celine patch up their relationship post-credits.  But Before Midnight really screams that someone has shattered the vase and it is going to take a long time to find middle ground.

It is odd what causes the whole thing.  Linklater teases a concept that is both relatable and seems bigger than the lives of the audience.  I have to admit, I'm pretty vanilla.  I relish the concept of being a big fish in a small pond.  I live in the suburbs.  I have too many kids.  I want to be a writer, but also love that I'm a great teacher.  My wife lives near her parents.  She has too few kids (the same amount that I have) and is well-established in her career.  We don't have the drama that Jesse and Celine have.  There's no infidelity on either person's part.  We tend not to have arguments that last forty minutes.  Our arguments last a few minutes before someone needs to go cool down.  It takes a couple hours to days, but we're never in "Let's burn it all down."  At least, I'm not.  Geez, I hope my wife isn't either.

But that's Linklater.  Linklater, for all of his grounded storytelling, lives in a world that probably mirrors his own.  He's not one of us. There's elements of him that mirror us.  The fact that he can wax poetic about things for hours seems like it is a human trait.  But Jesse is also a published author.  In fact, he's such a published author that other authors invite him to trips to Greece so that they can talk about philosophy and art.  You know, the things that a blogger from the suburbs can't really pull off because my pond is too small.  Jesse, for all of his characterization as a typical American, lives quite the life.  I know that divorce is common.  I'm not getting divorced.  (Note:  I actually hear that a lot in podcasts and interviews, only for it to come back later to bite them.  I don't see it in the cards.) He lives in Europe while his son is with his (anecdotally) emotionally abusive mother.  Celine is...a lot.  Like, we're supposed to see her as quirky, but she has a lot of larger than life baggage that keeps coming back.  Everything about Jesse and Celine is wired to bring about conflict and romance.  They're almost weaponized as characters.

​I get it.  Films need to be about conflict.  Linklater has an hour 40 to get these characters through their paces.  The other movies have these conflicts, but the conflicts tend to be hiccups against the greater questions of "Will they? Won't they?"  But they are together. They have been for a while.  They have kids together.  These kids aren't babies.  They have been through it and have experienced the trials, tribulations, and blessings of marriage.  But Linklater doesn't wipe away their insane baggage.  Because, they're right when they complain about each other.  I mean, they're really mean about it and I hate that people get that way, but they're right.  Jesse and Celine are insuffereable.  They both make good points, but their own neuroses drive me up the wall.  But that's what good characterization is, right?  I mean, if someone created two perfect people, we would get bored.  This would all be Hallmark.  No, we're not rooting for people (correction: We're not supposed to root for people), we're rooting for love to triumph.

It's odd.  Jesse and Celine have real problems.  We're supposed to think that Jesse cheated on Celine, which is gross and depressing.  I mean, Linklater claims that he read a study that 72% of women have cheated and 70% of men in long term relationships.  I call shannanigans on that one, but I'm also --as a reminder --incredibly vanilla.  So we get these real world problems through the context of infidelity and unbearable / unforgivable sadness.  It's a bummer and it kind of holds the movie back because the fight that they have in that third act is marriage.  Take all of the grandiose things that Linklater attributes to Jesse and Celine and there's something there.  It's the fight over a stupid hotel room or a vacation that someone didn't want to take.  It's the fight over things that have no right answer, like wanting to take care of Henry, despite the fact that it would involve losing the perfect job.  It's about the small stuff.  But those small things are able to be fixed and addressed when there isn't this huge thing hanging over their heads.

Because I word-vomit all of my thoughts into these blogs, I'm going to write this paragraph dealing with something that is poorly made and underbaked.  There's a scene where Jesse and Celine visit this old Greek church dedicated to the patron saint of the blind.  Celine, in her typical cynical fashion, itches to make blasphemous jokes because they are alone.  But she comments that Jesse was raised Catholic and there is something sacred in this location that he cannot move past.  Cut to the end.  While Jesse is also torpedoing his relationship with Celine (I'm not giving him a pass for how things turn out towards the end), Celine is the one adamant to let the whole relationship die off.  She finds the public narrative of how they met trite and annoying; a fairy tale from her perspective.  It's Jesse who is willing to do the fairy tale thing and try to rescue it.  It's heavily implied that if Jesse didn't chase after her and make that dumb time-travel narrative (which Celine points out is immature and too Hollywood), that relationship would have ended.  I wonder if there is a tie to the notion of Catholic marriage and the need to try to rescue something that should be bonded for life.  (Although, it is stated that they technically aren't married.  It does seem like a technicality in terms of analysis.) 

The entire Before trilogy hits me weird.  I like it.  I do.  But it is also such a cynical look at love.  Okay, that's not accurate.  There's a time that it is a celebration of love, but it really keeps reminding us that there's something less than glorious about love.  Part of my read on that is because of my dislike of Jesse and Celine as protagonists.  They are insufferable, which I think comes from a lot of improv and forced chemistry.  But I also like that these movies kind of exist.  I wish they saw the world through a happier light, but that's not Linklater's view of the world.  Yeah, I'm glad that he implies that they stick to it.  But I don't want to live in a world where people think that this is what marriage really is.