“Before Midnight”
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick
Drama
109 Mins
R

The defining feature of Richard Linklater‘s truly unique warbling on 21st century romance continues to be strength of voice and hyper-focused characterization in his newest film, Before Midnight. Each scene is as texturally vibrant as it is well acted and our nine-year awaited return to Jesse and Celine feels as poignant and timely as ever.

Following up on a one-of-a-kind franchise that is based solely on walking-and-talking through foreign landscapes and our established interest in a relationship between two star-crossed lovers, this third installment takes us to Greece to catch up with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy‘s intricately crafted characters. Tapping into our collective fears of rejection, of aging and of love as an ever-fleeting feeling, Before Midnight shows a maturity devilishly rare among modern day cinema.

The film opens in the sprawl of a Greek International Airport where Jesse is sending his son, Hank (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), back home to his mother in Chicago. After the closing moments of the last film, Before Sunset, we are pretty much left to assume that Jesse and his now ex-wife are probably not on the best of terms but that strained relationship is really fleshed out in this opening sequence. It’s clear that Jesse’s infidelity did not go down smoothly and his relationship with his son has become collateral damage as a result of of that decision made nine years ago.

Jesse and Hank share some quiet moments where Jesse tries to reach out for his son and seems to keep coming up empty-handed but in the last moments before Hank returns back home, he admits that this has been the best summer of his life. This sparks an internal narrative in Jesse that will flow throughout the film and will later cause waves within Jesse and Celine’s relationship.

Outside the airport gates, Celine waits for Jesse with their two curly-haired little girls and they begin a lengthy car ride back to their summer home, chatting about this and that in a naturalistic manner. Together, they decide to bypass the ancient runes that their sleeping daughter so badly wanted to see. Honest interactions like these are not a critique of them as parents but a genuine interplay of the circumstances at work and a peek into the decision-making process they, together, engage in as parents.

As Jesse eats the remnants of his slumbering child’s apple, he admits to feeling cheated out of Hank’s life as Celine muses about her wavering decision to abandon non-profit work and ally with the government. There’s nothing tremendously important said or done in these scenes outside of the context of their personal lives but it’s the conventionality of these affairs that make it, and the franchise, so engrossing. We don’t feel like we’re witnessing a romanticized love story – some silly and meaningless fairy tale – we feel like we’re checking in with a pair of people. Their lives aren’t tremendously exciting, nor are they particularly boring, but their little issues, insecurities, second-guessings and chats are all they have. In these opening moments, the scene is set for another deeply personal and empathetic film.

Cruising through the Greek countryside, Linklater takes us to the villa where Jesse, Celine, Hank and their two daughters have spent the summer. It’s a beautiful piece of land, marked by budding fruits, ocean-view verandas, and countless rows of scrawling trees. Jesse and his family are here by invitation of a fellow writer for Jesse to use as a muse of sorts for his next book. As always, the absorbing feeling of location simply boils from the screen but, unlike the other films in the series, we don’t feel like tourists hitting the highlights so much as locals going about their day-to-day. 

At dinner, a philosophical debate breaks out between Jesse, Celine and four Greeks on the benefits and drawbacks of marital interdependence – the benefits and drawbacks of living one collective life or two highly distinguishable lives. These discussions offer an interesting counter point to (also Greek) Plato’s Symposium, in which Aristophanes puts forth the notion that love comes from a primal searching for a part of ourselves. All humans are created and then split in two. Our entire lives are devoted to the idea that we can recover what is missing from ourselves and, from that, achieve happiness and fulfillment. While Linklater doesn’t really come down on one side or the other in terms of this popular philosophical tenant, he lets his characters do the talking. 

Like in all circumstances, Jesse is the hopeless romantic, Celine – the unwavering realist. For Jesse, love is eternal. It is giving and without bound but like most philosophers, it’s something to be talked about rather than engaged in on and day-to-day basis. For Celine, love is in the details. It’s not some grand theory, it’s the ins-and-outs of everyday living. It’s doing the laundry and matching socks. It’s being there and being present. Their contesting ideas on love as a foundation stretches from this conversation into the bulk of the film and sets out an uncertain path for this couple who, up to this point, we’ve only seen in the stages of courtship. The question arises: is love eternal?  

Although their gender roles seem to hem closely to a conventional sense of familial structure, there is an obvious push from Celine to break free. She sees this traditional setup as a barrier to her career goals and faults Jesse for always putting himself and his work first. Jesse, wavering on understanding but fundamentally traditional in his outlook, sees her dissatisfaction with her own standing as a self-created whirlwind set in motion by her back-burnering her own true desires. In other words, it’s not him standing in the way of her dream, it’s her. Their relational positioning is age-old and yet as timely as ever in the face of new-wave feminism.

Linklater’s films function in a reality where clear horizons are more a puff of smoke than an actuality. Clashing is a natural occurrence. Fights arise from needing to blow off steam and conflicting wants and needs lead to relationship issues. Tapping into our collective fears of not being understood or appreciated, we witness the cathartic ups-and-downs of a real love relationship in Jesse and Celine and understand them both equally.

There’s therapeutic nihilism in Celine’s rough-hewn outlook on love and the world and Delpy embraces this character with a blanket of understanding. Even when Celine is being admittedly crazy, she sticks to her guns like a nagging coon, unable to help herself. Blanketed behind five-o-clock shadowed grit, Jesse is equally at fault for their relationship woes as his cock-eyed grin and boyish reflections don’t fill his quota for being a daddy. As a pair, Delpy and Hawke are solid gold.

Throughout it’s 109 minutes, there is not an ounce of narrative fat asking to be skimmed off nor is there any pandering to a broad and blasé audience. The tender handling of insecurities is all that can be asked for as Linklater again acquaints us with an unusually contemplative couple who have earned our love and attention. As a continuing character study, it’s nuanced and brilliantly acted. As a philosophical pondering, it’s meaningful and important. As a film, it’s damn near perfect. Serving as the apex of the trilogy, Before Midnight asks both: what is love and where do we go from here?

A+

“Man of Steel”
Directed by Zack Snyder
Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Antje Traue, Richard Schiff, Christopher Meloni and Laurence Fishburne
Action, Adventure, Fantasy
143 Mins
PG-13 
With a first half that focuses on exposition and a second that’s all about the explosions, Zach Snyder and Christopher Nolan have done it… Superman is finally cool. With the whizkid pyrotechnics born of Synder’s directorial hand and the tenderly crafted narrative laid out by Nolan and David S. Goyer (the team who wrote Batman Begins) this modern revamping gives the Man of Steel a much needed update into the post 9/11 era with intelligent panache.

What Nolan and Goyer have added to the franchise is a sense of stakes that have never existed before within the context of Superman, particularly on film. Supes has always been too immaculate, too shimmery, and too invincible but with Man of Steel, we meet a very flawed and isolated individual putting on a brave face. Rather than downplay that reclusive nature, it’s the forefront of the piece.

Kal-El (or per his Earth name, Clark Kent) is a character with tremendous duality. Not only does he have a bi-planetary passport but the ideals passed on to him from his two fathers are at odds with each other. Having sent him from the dying planet of Krypton, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is Clark’s biological father while goodhearted Midwestern, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) takes up the mantle of being Clark’s adoptive father when Clark crash lands on Earth.

While restraint in the presence of menace is of paramount importance to Jonathan Kent as he’s raising young Clark, strength in the face of fear is the message preached by his real father Jor-El. While Jonathan urges Clark to keep his super gifts secret, Jor-El encourages him to be proud of being different, but let’s skirt around any underlying political subtext here and leave that debate for later.

Crowe and Costner are both Uncle Ben-esque in their obligatory moral guardianship but the act of passing wisdom on, that has become a staple of the contemporary superhero film, subverts the standard with their two polarized stances. Both genuinely care for Clark and want nothing but the best for him. The differences arise with regards to whether or not they think the people of Earth are ready to accept change or not. Would humans accept an “alien” as their own or would they reject him? It’s no surprise that the Midwestern one shouts “Nay” while the ultra-tech savvy, cape-wearing, intergalactic man of science leans another way. This underlying battle of progressive versus conservative stirs Clark – ultimately pulling him in opposite directions, between secrecy and disclosure. It’s this metaphorical dichotomy that makes Clark the compelling character that we haven’t seen before in a Superman film.

Nolan and Goyer have written in an admirable foe for Superman in their character, Zod. Zipping around and smashing into each other, Zod and Supes have been matched equally – breaking the film free of that dulling sense where we find ourselves thinking, “Well of course Superman is going to win. He’s Superman.”

As Superman, Henry Cavill  may be British but he fits the bill for the iconic American well. Instead of the impervious beacon of light, this is an immigrant struggling with his identity and battling his own wicked urges. As commendable as the Christopher Reeve iteration of the character is, Cavill does more heavy lifting than the fluffy, Americano poster-child that Supes has been known to be. Albeit a quiet force, he is brimming with broody angst. But instead of letting his kettle boil, this hero is afraid of becoming angry, as his limitless power is sure to make any fight a lesson in masochism. Instead he learns to temper that rage and channel it for the greater good. He’s a fledgling of an icon, the first block in a pantheon, but getting to see the rivets along the walls before they are all smoothed out makes the process of construction more interesting than the final product. Luckily, we’re there to witness the transformation. 


The always lovable Amy Adams  plays Lois Lane, a character who’s always been more of a damsel in distress than a heroine of any kind, but this is a Lane that even the feminists can stand behind. Rather than a reactionary woman in need of saving, she’s a caution-be-damned, no frills kind of girl, willing to stand up for a cause and Adams is the perfect fit for the role. Her infatuation with Superman is not a schoolgirl crush, as she actually deserves the attention she gets from him rather than their romance being based on coincidental happy accident.

Although Clark’s home planet of Krypton is destroyed, there is something left standing from his previous life: an outcast military leader from his home planet by the name of General Zod (Michael Shannon).. With Superman, Zod, and crew – the last remaining vestiges of their now extinguished planet – Zod comes to Earth seeking Supes’ assistance in rebuilding their fallen brethren. Upon hearing Zod’s ideas for how to save their lost race, Superman faces his greatest challenge in Zod and, thankfully, it’s Kryptonite-free. The whole Kryptonine conceit is something of a MacGuffin that is most likely impossible to play to great effect and I’m glad to have seen it ditched here.

As a fan of Shannon’s work, Zod is an apt villain but he doesn’t have a ton to work with outside of shouting his lines and being generally angry. At times, I wished Shannon would play with volume a little more and not crank everything up to 11 but it’s hardly as over-the-top as many of his comic book compatriots and we are talking about an Academy Award nominee here.

Zipping around and smashing into each other, Zod and Superman are on the same page in the power book which breaks the film free of that dulling sense of, “Well of course Superman is going to win. He’s Superman” because it’s really Superman versus about six people with the equivalent of Superman’s powers.

From a technical aspect, the film is brilliant. The truly epic set pieces are indulgent but inventive and go to show that Synder is willing to reel in his heavy-handed flair for slo-mo theatrics to let the story shine when it matters most. Synder’s special effects team flawlessly incorporate the actors in the massive set pieces by juxtaposing intimate shots with massively panned-out shots that create a crisp and vibrant sense of realism.

As the final hour is one mounting action sequence, the smashing and zooming somehow manage to remain fresh, thanks in large part to Hans Zimmer and his string section’s thumping score that confidently guides the film. Like Snyder, Zimmer shows that he too can tune down the dramatics, as his work is able to lay low for the quiet bits of the film and crescendo to epic heights for the compulsory action sequences.



Contrasting Man of Steel to Bryan Singer‘s Superman Returns, it is head and shoulders superior. DC Comics continues along the path set out for them by Nolan where a sense of reality is more important than easy comedy. I’m willing to say that I am now very much invested in the franchise and the plight of the iconic hero at its forefront. In this world, there is no assumed familiarity with the franchise but neither is the mythos spoon-fed. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a good Superman movie.

B+