97% Before Midnight

All Critics (61) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (2)

The Before series has steadily gotten better as it goes along, which is more than any but the most optimistic among us dare to hope for from love.

Before Midnight is the fullest and richest and saddest of the three movies in the trilogy.

the actual give-and-take between the characters is uncomfortably emotionally accurate, which means it will make an excellent, if challenging, date movie for both new and old couples.

If I were only allowed to see one movie this year, I'd want it to be Before Midnight. If I were only allowed two trips to a theater this year, I'd see it twice.

It's a wildly uneven enterprise, overall.

If anything, the films have only gotten better by letting the relationship marinate. "Midnight's" more disgruntled edge reflects what creeps up on couples as years pass, regrets stack up, kids factor in, real life intervenes.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy come off as if they were conjoined for the past nine years in the gloriously-acted, hypnotically-conversational conclusion to the Before Sunrise trilogy -- the year's first legit contender for awards season love.

The last 40 minutes consisting of acute, sharp, and biting dialogue reminiscent of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' make sitting through the excruciating first hour worth it.

Brilliant, mature third chapter to heartfelt romantic saga.

Truth is beauty, and beauty truth, but they're not necessarily romantic nine years into a serious committed relationship with two kids in the backseat.

No matter how long the gap between movies has been or how completely the characters' lives have changed, when Jesse and Celine turn to each other and start one of their famously epic conversations, it feels like no time has passed at all.

A life-affirming, emotionally captivating and rewarding experience. It treats the audience like sophisticated, mature adults---a demographic that has been sorely neglected by Hollywood nowadays.

The combination of high-level performance and subtle construction, in a picture in which nothing blows up, is actually thrilling.

While not the most fun or sexiest film in this trilogy -- do you want to watch mom and dad fight for 30 minutes straight? -- it's easily the most necessary, and it's the logical extension of where this relationship story should and must go.

The actors have mastered these roles, and Linklater's observational style is so perfected that they could go on speaking for hours

You feel how much is at stake when they argue, how real the damage they inflict, and you can't shake it off. It's a spectacular movie.

Such is the power of the final scenes that the trio would be more than justified in launching a fourth film sometimes in the next five years or so.

Fireworks of authentic dialogue, emotion, and the madness of love reach a crescendo of palpable joie de vivre in "Before Midnight."

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/before_midnight_2013/

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