Before Midnight (2013)
Directed by Richard Linklater
It has been nine years since we last met Jesse and Celine, the French-American couple who once met on a train in Vienna. They now live in Paris with twin daughters but have spent a summer in Greece at the invitation of an author colleague of Jesse's. When the vacation is over and Jesse must send his teenage son off to the States, he begins to question his life decisions, and his relationship with Celine is at risk.
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What critics compared Before Midnight to
The remainder of Marriage Story is grueling, like the heart-wrenching third-act argument in Before Midnight between Celine and Jesse stretched out for 2+ hours.
It reminds me a lot of “Before Midnight,” but where Jesse and Celine are a couple you actively want to root for, Nicole and Charlie are not.
He strives for Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage” (1973), building to a monster blowout argument to rival Jean-Luc Godard’s “Contempt” (1963) or Richard Linklater’s “Before Midnight” (2013).
Driver quietly embodies the frustration of being ambushed by Nicole’s seemingly sudden decisions, slowly erupting into a superbly acted and extremely uncomfortable to watch fight between the couple rivaled only by the volatile argument depicted in Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight.
“Marriage Story” rarely gets explosive, except one signature scene that channels Richard Linklater’s “Before Midnight” (2013).
When the two of them are on screen together, it’s humanity that shines through, whether in a raucous argument that recalls the best moments of Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight or in a courtroom scene that sees both of them remain tellingly silent.
Even if that doesn't engage you (although I should mention here that Michelangelo Antonioni's 1961 film "La Notte" is also a pertinent cinematic reference point for this picture) the actual give-and-take between the characters is uncomfortably emotionally accurate, which means it will make an excellent, if challenging, date movie for both new and old couples.
Later, after the film, I found myself daydreaming that perhaps we could revisit them every ten years or so à la the relationship trilogy “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight.”
It’s nine years further on from then and writer-director Richard Linklater (“Bernie”) has returned to two of his most vibrantly drawn characters as they enter their forties – older, maybe wiser, vacationing in Greece for the summer with their famiy.
Eighteen years ago, writer-director Richard Linklater (2012's " Bernie ") released what was, and arguably still is, his most formidable achievement as a filmmaker, the sweepingly romantic "Before Sunrise."
With this third film, cowriter (with his stars Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke)/director Richard Linklater ("Before Sunset," "Bernie") has fallen into his own fictional, couples version of the "Up" documentary series.
And I would have loved if Linklater (“Bernie”, “School of Rock”) had sprinkled some flashbacks from earlier films, letting us remember what these two maybe are forgetting — the moist-eyed romance of it all.
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The comparison might sound wonky, but The Irishman is essentially Martin Scorsese’s Before Midnight moment.
Linklater experimented with this sort of time-capsule filmmaking with his “Before Sunrise” trilogy, three movies that captured a romance between two people (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) in their 20s, then in their 30s (in “Before Sunset”) and finally in their 40s (in “Before Midnight”).
The piece might be most fascinating as a study in the evolution of a filmmaker, as Linklater made no fewer than 8 other films during the making of “Boyhood,” from “School Of Rock” to “A Scanner Darkly” to “Before Midnight.”
That is, unless the movie is “Boyhood” and the movie was written and directed by Richard Linklater, whose “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight” are beloved by so many film-goers.
Filmed over the course of 12 years, Director/Writer Richard Linklater (“Before Midnight”) explores the life of Mason (Ellar Coltrane), a young boy we first meet at the age of 5. His parents (Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke) are divorced, but friendly and Mason has a typical best friend/worst enemy relationship with his older sister Samantha (Linklater’s daughter, Lorelei).
The animated navel-gazer “Waking Life” (2001) bestowed on him a degree of intellectual heft, and the “Before” movies of 1995-2013 (“Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight”) somehow made him synonymous with the realpolitik of romance, and romance itself.
In spirit, if not in the particulars, Boyhood recalls Linklater's Before trilogy: Before Sunrise , Before Sunset , Before Midnight .
Here’s an idea: Maybe Burnham could make this a series, something along the lines of Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight .