Before Midnight (2013)

In 'Before Midnight' there is a scene in which a famous writer, commenting on the novels of author character Ethan Hawke, declairs his 3rd one to be his best. Hence Richard Linkletter makes a commtary in his Before Trilogy on his Before Trilogy, and I think he's right, the 3rd ones the best. 

Where 'Sunrise' and 'Sunset' are highly idealized romances, and wonderfully so, 'Midnight' picks up another 9 years later to comment on the trials and triumphs of a lived relationship, nearly a decade in. Hawke is divorced from his first wife, and seeing the son he had with her between movies one and two off at the airport. They are in Greece on a working vacation at a writers retreat, Julie Deply is there, along with their twin, roughly seven year old daughters. The film has the requisite walking through an ancient European city and some great conversations, including a long one at a dinner table siting eight, so it's not just the one on one conversations of the earlier films, here we have a plethora of perspectives.

What sets this film most apart from its predecessors, and elevates it (though the rest of the film is also great) is the argument scene. A long masterpiece that winds through various stages, ebbs and flows from reasoned discourse to rage, fascinating, uncomfortable, distressing and reassuring. It had been building, you see the rumblings earlier in the film. The thing is both are right, it involves a big decision and both have perfectly valid points. It seems unreconcilable, and while we never get a straight answer on which way they are going to go, it brings home that the key to making a relationship work, is reconciling even the seemingly unreconcilabe, and remembering the love that undergirds everything. It feels true. ***1/2