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True Romance

Jesse and Celine have quite the history together. First introduced in 1995's "Before Sunrise" on a fateful train journey, we met up with them again in 2004 in "Before Sunset" as they reunite in Paris. Now nine years on, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprise their roles in "Before Midnight", a film that is at times romantic, uncomfortable and ultimately a very real depiction of the ebb, flow and compromise of a committed relationship.

The couple has spent the summer in Greece, guests of writer Patrick (cinematographer Walter Lassally) in his idyllic home, and it's time to send Jesse's son Hank (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, "Moonrise Kingdom") back to the America to be with his mother. Sending Hank off and, more accurately, the guilty feelings that accompany that, spark a conversation between Jesse and Celine in which Jesse suggests that maybe they should consider moving to Chicago to be closer. Little does he know, he's opening Pandora's box with this one, and in the hours that follow, he and Celine will lay bare all of the little sacrifices they've made in their relationship and all of the little resentments that have built over the years.

The film is dialogue. 100% dialogue. A dinner scene provides the backdrop for some interaction with their hosts - Patrick and a lady friend, his grandson and girlfriend, and another Greek couple - but other than that it's mostly the two of them, talking through their relationship, their neuroses, their mistakes. Mr. Hawke and Ms. Delpy have great chemistry, so it's not a stretch to see the bond between the characters and conversation feels spontaneous: writer (and director) Richard Linklater even shares script credit with the pair.

That evening, they leave the kids in the others' care and walk through a truly gorgeous landscape to a hotel for a romantic evening alone. Here conversation continues through foreplay which does not build to sex, but instead an argument years in the making. The topics are myriad: Celine's sacrifices as a mother, various indiscretions, the couple's inability to connect in the same way as they did before children, and of course Hank's desire to be closer to his son. It's uncomfortable. Real. But in the end, that's what it's all about. Romance isn't without its hitches and setbacks, but, as Jesse and Celine show us, that doesn't make it any less meaningful.