Before Midnight Reviews
89%
Queue Score
SoPhil loved
Before Midnight
It was real and raw. It made me, someone who has never been in love or been loved, understand that life can’t just be like their night in Vienna. That truth of comfortability and whether the love extends past the ‘honeymoon’ stage was something I was not prepared to be faced with
2y
liv liked
Before Midnight
For the life of me I can’t love this movie because I hate to see them fighting. But it also seemed inevitable. The foundation of their relationship were brief encounters and fleeting moments, of course their whole dynamic was going to change once mundanity sets in. (1)
1y
nadine liked
Before Midnight
okay, yes, i cried. it was so funny because their romantic relationship, albeit the fact that it is the main focus of the trilogy, wasn’t something i was the most focused on. it was their conversation, their thoughts that hooked me in the previous movies. but, i cared about them-
2y
ChisaiPapillon liked
Before Midnight
After so many years together, their relation isn't the fairytales that we like to see. The first two movies show the beggining of their love but this one showed the reality of living with it day by day. It takes commitment and giving up things just to be there for one another.
1y
nevan loved
Before Midnight
a brutal end to a powerful romance trilogy full of arguments and the drawbacks of marriage with themes grounded in reality. the passion once felt in the writing and acting of these characters may falter, but as the ending reveals, eventually resurfaces for a fitting conclusion
1y
lj loved
Before Midnight
can she stfu for a few minutes jesus it’s like they completely thru her entire character out the window idc if she’s written as a feminist activist in reality she’s just a cunt who jumps at jesses throat for no apparent reason all he wants is too see his son ??
3y
Ciaran Fourrier loved
Before Midnight
The third and final movie in the “Before Trilogy” feels the most real. They talk about real things: family, divorce, kids. Not quite as good as the first movie imo, but it’s still amazing in its own way.
3y
Thomas Joyce loved
Before Midnight
It was only yesterday after finishing Sunset that I read Ethan Hawke’s quote about the trilogy - “The first film is about what could be, the second is about what should have been. Before Midnight is about what it is.” And truly, I think that puts stages of life into perspective better than anything else I’ve ever heard or thought.
Whilst Sunrise and Sunset had this giddy optimism and romanticism about it, whilst also dealing with the harsh realities of the period granted, but Midnight instead deals with the hard truths, or “what it is”. The film is often pretty miserable, especially toward the end, with conversations leaning more resolution-heavy, before crumbling apart at a single “wrong” word. I think there’s a lot to be said about compatibility, and what it means to love “unconditionally” - whatever that means… but it’s interesting, it’s raw and it never holds back from the nitty gritty.
Writing again, like the previous two entries is nothing short of masterful; it takes some serious skill to maintain audience retention over a film with pure conversations in the way Linklater manages to achieve across this trilogy. The score is superb, the backdrop of Greece is perfect and made me desperate for a holiday - admittedly I became distracted looking at the scenery. I just think the whole package is so tidy and impactful - and to use the word yet again, real.
This is my favourite performance from the leads across the trilogy, it’s the most difficult to portray for sure. Gone is the awkwardness of meeting and re-meeting, instead witnessing a couple who’ve been together for 9 years, but still maintain their characteristics, albeit evolved, from what we’ve come to know of them. Part of it’s the writing, which of course Hawke and Delpy contributed, but the evolution of their ideals and hopes in the first film to what they are now and their subconscious reaction and disappointment about it is so emotional to me, and honestly pretty scary…
I just know this is going to be a film that sits on my mind for the next few days, it’s very rare for me to give full marks on a first watch, and at all if we’re talking in the grand calculus of everything I’ve watched - but this felt special, important even. The sort of film, and trilogy, is to be watched across a lifetime to remind you of who you were and what you are now.
Maybe I’ll revisit in 9 years time…
10d
ant loved
Before Midnight
I don’t have much to say about this movie because all I CAN say is that the last hour or so is just one of the best sequences of all time.
I do love that while the old woman told her story she managed to say sunrise and sunset. that was cool
73d
cassius casanova loved
Before Midnight
hotel scene to the end credits had some of the most devastating pieces of dialogue i’ve ever heard. there were hints of their incompatibility in the first two movies but this one shows their problems fully realized. the fairytale magic of the series gets exposed by hard truths
85d