The first two parts of the Before trilogy from director Richard Linklater and actors Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (who collectively collaborated on the scripts for these movies) were rather delightful, largely plot-free character pieces showing American Jesse and French Celine as they meet in a different European city, talk quite a bit about life and love, and fall for each other. Now, in the final part of the trilogy, the pair have been married for a period with a pair of twin girls and their anxieties reflect two people in their forties just as the previous two movies reflected two people in their twenties and thirties.
And I said I would have the trilogy written up and reviewed by the end of the week.
It becomes apparent very quickly why this one may be a bit different from the previous two. Whereas before we had Celine and Jesse do nothing but talk to each other with other characters mostly just passing through, this one opens with a very different scene as Jesse guides his young son Hank, the only child from a previous marriage, through a Greek airport. Jesse is nothing but nervous questions while Hank says very little. For a movie trilogy built off two people who thus far have always had a lot to say, it says something very different when the two are both not together and also not saying much. In fact, as Jesse leaves the airport to find Celine staying by their car, the movie opts to give the briefest of updates on their lives by silently showing the two are still together with a pair of identical little blonde girls asleep in their back seat.
Now, in a lot of movies like this, this would be the point where we might see the couple we’ve seen and perhaps grown attached to over two other movies living in some sort of domestic bliss. Granted, a movie like that would probably be pretty boring, but it’s what we would expect. However, this series has been based if not in realism than at least a feeling of realistic anxieties and experiences for people both of certain age groups and at certain stages of a relationship. So, what happens when a pair who, previously, seem to have nothing to do but talk to each other have possibly run out of things to say to each other after 18 years (granted, there was a nine year gap between their first and second meetings, but it’s still 18 years).
As a result, the movie is mostly a conflict between the two, namely Jesse’s guilt over how he hasn’t been there as much for his largely America-based son as he wants to by while Celine is chaffing under the sacrifices she’s had to make herself for the sake of his desires. From their first conversation in the movie, it’s there, leading to some low-key squabbles until late in the movie it erupts into something that might have been unthinkable in the previous two movies: a very ugly argument, where Jesse and Celine both seem to know exactly what to say to hurt each other the most.
That said, if they know what to say to hurt each other the most, they also seem to know what to say to reconcile to each other, a feeling that comes across as something that may be a product of familiarity, but also a new stage of love the two had perhaps never considered before. Yes, married life is hard, but they’re still able to make each other laugh, express some truly interesting philosophical and emotional ideas, and generally be good together. Whether or not Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy have anything more to say about these two, I think it’s safe to say the trio have rather remarkably depicted how a couple can find and sustain love.
Grade: A-
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