Before Midnight review

 Number 245 on the top 1000 films of all time is Richard Lintlaker's 2013 conclusion to his 'Before Trilogy' - 'Before Midnight.'

Nine years on from when we saw them last in Paris, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delphy) are married with twin girls holidaying in Greece. However, Jesse also has a fractious relationship with his son Hank from a previous marriage. It doesn't help that his ex-wife hates both him and Celine.

What do you think of when you hear perfect film trilogies? Lord of the Rings? Back to the Future? The Dollars trilogy? The Dark Knight? I would add the Before Trilogy to that illustrious list. While it isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it is a highly satisfactory end to Lintlaker's Before trilogy.

In many ways, Before Midnight is the biggest film of the three. The cast is expanded by Celine and Jesse are holidaying with a group of friends. The film loses some of its intimate feel as we see the cast having extended conversations with each other, and the character dynamics and relationships take precedence over a stripped-back plot. But when you have characters and dialogue as real as you have here, this is no criticism at all.

With this installment, we see that Jesse and Celine have the most to lose. They have long left behind the honeymoon phase and are now married trying to navigate the complexities of life - least of all Jesse's estranged relationship with his ex-wife and son. Having lived in Paris for the last nine years, Celine is unwilling to give up her life to move to New York especially since Jesse's ex-wife hates her so much.

Yet such an important plot-point like this is very much left up to the viewer's imagination. The less-is-more approach has always been this trilogy's strength - it has always been light on plot, spectacle and budget, but this was too crucial of a detail to be relegated to mere exposition. The same can be said for Jesse's son Hank who, despite appearing at the beginning, never felt like anything more than a plot device.

I was also unsure about the ending. Just when it seems that Jesse and Celine's relationship might be torn apart after a terrible fight, they reconcile with Jesse making an impassioned plea that he isn't perfect and neither is their relationship, but that's just the way life works out sometimes. Considering how the trilogy has always been so big on authenticity, I was expecting something more bittersweet, but having couples make up after bad fights is just as realistic as having couples who don't.

These criticisms don't take away from what was a great conclusion to one of my new favourite film trilogies. Before Midnight was a great exploration of how the way we love can change with age. The script was as natural as ever with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy having as much chemistry as always. I was surprised to find out that there was no improvisation on set - the script was followed verbatim. Everything felt so real that I sometimes thought I was watching a documentary rather than a film.