When director Richard Linklater was young, he met a woman and spent a whole day with her; having conversations and getting to know each other. He kept thinking about how that experience had a movie somewhere. Years later, he directed Before Sunrise. Ethan Hawke and July Delpy were the two actors he selected for that two-hander, and the rest is history. The three, together, created one of the best trilogies ever. One that showed romance, love, and marriage in a lot more realistic way than Hollywood usually does. Here’s why:
Unique Format for a Unique Story
Columbia Pictures
Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is an American traveling from Budapest to Vienna by train. He meets Céline (Julie Delpy), a French woman going to Paris. They start talking, and he convinces her to spend a whole night in Vienna together. That’s the story of Before Sunrise. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have incredible chemistry with each other. The word two-hander has never been so adept. They spend that time together, talking casually in a dialogue that ebbs and flows naturally. There’s no plot. Nothing happens other than their connection getting stronger, as they understand each other and where they come from.
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It’s all shot realistically, with long takes and no interruptions that help us fall in love with this couple at the same time they’re falling for each other. Linklater told BFI: “The fact is, they won’t know until they’re apart how much they really care about each other.”
Love Changes Through Time
Warner Independent Pictures
After that great first movie, they shot a new film with the same characters every nine years: Before Sunset and Before Midnight. Each movie follows the same format and cinematographic style. Conversations show where Jesse and Céline are emotionally, and how they’ve evolved over time. It started with love at first conversation. The two vow to see each other again in Vienna six months later, without changing contact information (romanticism before social media had its own risks). We never knew if they saw each other again and had their happy ending. Before Sunset has the answers, as they meet again in Paris, nine years later. She didn’t go back six months later, and he has written a book about that night together. We learn how their lives have changed. They (and her ideas about love) have evolved through their different life experiences.
Both are more jaded and disappointed with love and life. The movie is shot in real-time, and they still have chemistry in spades. They both thought what they had together was easy to find, and the last nine years have proved them wrong. So, they squeeze every second they can together. Talking, explaining, and sharing silences that tell a lot. Remembering and thinking of what could have been. It has an open-ended ending in theory, but a simple smile from Jesse says it all. Without a doubt, it’s a movie to watch on Valentine’s Day.
Happily Ever After Needs Work
Castle Rock Entertainment
Before Midnight is the third part of the trilogy, and explores the ups and downs of love and being in a relationship. Jesse and Cèline have been together for the last nine years, and they now have kids. They’re middle-aged now, and the honeymoon phase is more than over. They still have their witty and intellectual repartee with each other, but there’s more resentment, and although they spend their lives together, they’re more disconnected from each other than ever before.
Both Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy know these characters’ ins and outs so well, and it shows as they give tour-de-force performances. It’s Hawke’s best movie, and that’s saying something. Linklater’s naturalistic style is even more accentuated here, with takes that last more than ten minutes, to make us be in the room with them, without distractions. Seeing how they love and hate each other, and go from one feeling to the next in seconds. And because they know each other so well, when they fight they know how to really hurt with little words.
It’s one of the most realistic movies about marriage and how you have to keep working on it. Hawke told The Guardian: “I felt it was important to do a corresponding film that was grounded in reality and the nature of love on a day-to-day basis”. And, like the other movies in the trilogy, it has an open-ended ending where you decide if they’re going to fight for their love or if this is the beginning of the end.
People (and Actors) Evolve
Ethan Hawke describes perfectly the idea behind the whole trilogy and their understanding of love: “The first film is about what could be; the second is about what should have been. Before Midnight is about what it is.” From the second movie on, Hawke and Delpy were co-writers of the films, and it shows in how they imbued every second of their conversations, making them more poignant and interesting. The Before trilogy shows the evolution of a love story. From “meet cute”, to relationship, to long-lived marriage. It’s still a two-hander, and both actors keep getting better and better over time, adding all the techniques they’ve learned over the years, giving these characters more weight and layers with each movie creating a believable couple that has been together forever, and that’s no small feat.
Are we going to see more films about Jesse and Céline? It doesn’t look likely. That’s ok, because Before Midnight gives us a perfect and realistic ending to the story. An end with mutual support and understanding. “If you want true love, this is it. This is real life. It’s not perfect. But it’s real.” Jesse tells Céline in the last film. That could be the idea behind the whole Before trilogy, and is also a good lesson about love and relationships for all of us.
