It took a lot of guts on behalf of Before Midnight's writer/director Richard Linklater to take two characters we love and make them squabble and bitch and hate on one another, especially after their relatively light-hearted and brilliantly romantic encounters in both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. But what might have looked like a risky move on paper turned out to be the best and most realistic decision of all: we love Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's Jesse and Celine because they're like real people. And real people change, of course - a key theme inherent to Before Midnight. That's to say, this is the least romantic and most prickly entry in the series thus far - for the first half of the movie, Linklater (who penned the script with Hawke and Delpy, who now own these characters as much as he does) lures us into a false sense of security, as we watch our couple - now married with two kids following the events of Before Sunset - wandering around, chatting about life, having dinner with friends, before suddenly plunging us into the one nightmare scenario we never wanted to see: Jesse and Celine engaging in a lengthy, brutal, turbulent fight. But after the shock of having witness the breakdown passes, a realisation sets in: this was the most natural place to take these characters, despite their romanticised origins. Jesse and Celine aren't exempt from the faculties of real life - and though they love one another, it's naive to think that it's impossible they might grow apart. Before Midnight caps Linklater's trilogy off as one of the best trilogies in movie history, and though it's not easy to take in the tone shift, it's certainly the most potent and resonant of all three. It's also the best movie of the year, hands down. Like this article? Which movies have we missed? Let us know in the comments section below.
