• Lunatic Writer
  • Novels & Novellas
    • Big Ledge Front
    • Big Ledge Back >
      • Big Ledge Review
      • Big Ledge More Reviews
      • Chicken Thief
      • Heaven
    • Loose Ends >
      • Loose Ends Back >
        • Loose Ends Interview
        • Reviews
    • Lunatics >
      • Copernicus Images
    • The Draper Catalogue >
      • Reviews
    • Eta Carinae >
      • Reviews
    • All Saints Day
    • Eta Carinae
    • Echoes
    • Book Reviews
  • Short Fiction
    • Sweet Melancholy
    • More Short Fiction
  • Drama
    • Willful Pursuits
    • More Willful Pursuits
    • Sproule's Folly
    • Gravity
    • Audio Drama
    • All the World's a Stage
    • Theatre Reviews
  • Astro
  • Author's Blog
  • Comments & Contacts
  • Res Naturae
    • Valhalla Provincial Park >
      • Gwillim Lakes
    • Record Ridge
    • Skattebo
    • Rock Slide Lake
    • Kootenay National Park >
      • Juniper
      • Marble Canyon
      • Paint Pots
      • Cobb Lake
      • Redstreak
      • Stanley Glacier
    • Waterton Lakes National Park >
      • Bear's Hump
      • Red Rock Canyon
      • Bertha Lake
      • Wall Lake
      • Prince of Wales
    • Old Growth Forest
    • Ripple Ridge
  • Abroad
    • Jamaica >
      • Aerial Creatures
      • Land Creatures
      • Ocean & Beach
      • Miscellaneous
    • France >
      • Paris I
      • Le Sud
      • Paris II
    • Oregon >
      • Washington
      • Cannonbeach
      • North Coast
      • Portland & Corvallis
      • Central Coast
      • Ashland
      • Crater Lake
      • Mt. Rainier
    • Belize >
      • Birds of Belize
      • Daily Life
      • Water Scenes
    • Greece >
      • Athens
      • Hydra
      • Argolid
      • Crete
      • Santorini
      • Mykonos & Delos
      • Delphi
    • Canyon Country >
      • Red Rock Canyon
      • Valley of Fire
      • Zion NP
      • Bryce Canyon NP
      • Grand Canyon
      • Sedona
    • Cuba >
      • Varadero
      • Jeep Tour
      • Havana
    • Cozumel >
      • All-Inclusive
      • Island Tour
      • Tulum
      • About Town
    • UK & Ireland >
      • London >
        • Ealing
        • Tower of London
        • Westminster
        • British Museum & the Eye
        • Thames & Greenwich
        • Victoria & Albert Museum
      • Northwest >
        • Grasmere
        • Chester
        • Liverpool
      • Southeast >
        • North Marston
        • Oxford
        • Hughenden Manor
        • Brighton
      • IRELAND >
        • Dublin
        • Killarney & Dingle
        • Muckross
      • York
      • West Midlands >
        • Hereford
        • Shrewsbury
      • Wales
      • Southwest >
        • Bath
        • Cornwall
    • Arizona >
      • Phoenix
      • Biosphere
      • Tucson
      • Nogales
      • Tombstone
      • Chiricahua
      • Kitt Peak
      • Casa Grande
  • I See You
  Lunatic Writer

Before Midnight--Movie Review

7/21/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Two thumbs up for this one.  One thumb for Ethan Hawke and another for Julie Delpy. 

I have seen few movies in recent memory that were more clearly and appropriately a duet piece.  Imagine: a movie about two people (Jesse and Celine) whose running conversation together make up 90% of the story.  What a concept! How foreign to everything screenwriters learn is necessary to make a good movie.  Two talking heads going at it non-stop.  But such heads, such conversation and, most importantly, such chemistry.

True  “chemistry” between actors is an overly-used adjective and, to my mind, a much rarer phenomenon than some critics would have us believe.  In a movie like Before Midnight, the chemistry threatens to boil over.

Fans of this trilogy of movies: first, Before Sunrise, then Before Sunset, and now Before Midnight, will know that the chemistry between Hawke and Delpy seems to have been present from their first moments together on film.  But now it has reached an even higher level.  Perhaps a more ‘mature’ level would be a better way of expressing it.  For now, instead of young starry-eyed lovers meeting on a train, and impulsively deciding to get off together in Vienna, we meet a middle-aged couple,  driving home from a Greek regional airport with two blond-haired daughters sleeping in the back seat of their car. 



Picture
Should they wake the kids, they wonder?  They had promised to stop at a nearby archaeological ruin, but it would be a shame to wake them.  They could always tell them it was closed, but that they’ll stop on the way back instead.  Anybody out there had a conversation like this before? 
    
If there is a theme to Before Midnight, it has to do with exploring the nature of marriage and long-term relationships.  Is a long-term relationship even possible?  Three different couples, varying in age, give interesting answers to this question and the question, as posed, begins to haunt our protagonists as well.  As they walk together down the road to a hotel, Celine asks,  “if you were to meet me on that train today,  for the first time, would you ask me get off with you?” It’s not a question Jesse is keen to answer but, when pushed, he answers in the affirmative.  Delpy’s character is skeptical, and her fiery French temper flares.  What should have been a very romantic evening together quickly turns into a no-holds-barred fight.

Without wanting to give away too much, I am happy to report, that under the influence of the Greek seaside, a glass of wine, and a deep commitment to the "chemistry" that has always defined their relationship, a warm light shines at the end of the tunnel.

Many viewers must be wondering if they can expect yet another movie in the series, nine of ten years down the road.  What would this one be called?  Before Hip Replacement?  


Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.






    ​Author

    Brian d'Eon, fiction writer: whose work modulates between speculative, historical and magical realism.

    Categories

    All
    1917
    2010
    Ainsworth
    Albert Einstein
    Apollo XI
    Astronomer
    Baillie Grohman
    Baillie-Grohman
    Begbie
    Big Ledge
    Blade Runner 1982
    Blade Runner 2049
    Bluebell Mine
    Book Review
    British Colonist
    Bruce Dern
    Capitalism Vs Climate
    Chapbook
    Civilization
    Climate Change
    Cosmology
    C.S. Lewis
    Dandelions
    Davie
    Dead Crow
    Deon
    D'Eon
    Diana Morita Cole
    Draper Catalogue
    Dreams
    E-books
    Economics
    Editing
    Eileen Delehanty Pearkes
    Eta Carinae
    Fassbender
    Flashbacks
    Gravity
    Gray
    Green Manifesto
    Grohman
    Guess Who's Back?
    Hammill
    Harold Fry
    Hayao Miyazaki
    Hendryx
    Hitler
    Internees
    Isaac Newton
    Jamaica
    Jfk
    Jobs Vs Environment
    John Keats
    Kenneth Clark
    Kootenays
    Korolev
    Lily Langtry
    Lunatics
    Mark Twain
    Matt Haig
    Mikado
    Millet
    Nebraska Movie
    Nelson
    Nixon
    Novel
    Novel Drafts
    Novella
    Novel Structure
    Opium
    Oscar Nominees
    Photography
    Pitch
    Plague
    Point Of View
    Primack & Abrams
    Publishers
    Queenie Hennessy
    Rachel Joyce
    Rejection
    Review
    Richard Bausch
    Sam Mendes
    Saoirse Ronan
    Science And Religion
    Science Literacy
    Sean Arthur Joyce
    Serkis
    Shakespeare
    Sideways
    Sinixt
    Sproule
    Sputnik
    Steamer
    Stranger Things
    Submissions
    Sweet Melancholy
    Telescope
    The Humans
    The Price Of Transcendence
    The Wind Rises
    Travel
    Treasure Beach
    Van Gogh
    Victoria
    View From The Center Of The Universe
    Von Braun
    Winter Photos
    Yeats

    Archives

    February 2022
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    June 2019
    October 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    July 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012