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 on the invitation of an author colleague of Jesses. 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.
Review
I enjoyed Before Sunrise when I first saw it and thought it was a clever charming movie with an innovative approach. In my opinion though Before Sunrise was vastly elevated by being paired with Before Sunset 9 years later.
Before Sunset is an exceptional movie much more melancholic than its predecessor but understandably so because the characters had grown up and had to let go of childish notions of fairytale happy ever afters. What makes Before Sunset so wonderful though is the notion throughout that even though things went wrong it's never too late to fix them.
Before Midnight is a different film to the previous two. In my opinion it is about two people who having made the mistake of losing contact the first time will work to make sure it never happens again. They were never going to have a fairytale life because they are both very complicated and I liked the realism of how their relationship developed as they got older.
I strongly disagree with other reviewers who say that Before Midnight can be watched without seeing the previous two. I criticised people who did that for Before Sunset and would caution against it even more for this one. Before Midnight relies on the idea that the audience understands how complicated the characters are and therefore continues to like them even when they do things which could seem nasty and shallow.
In summary while my favourite of the three movies remains Before Sunset Before Midnight adds richly to the overarching story that has been told in real time over 18 years of two characters that fans of the series have grown to love. As a three part series the Before movies are practically perfect.
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