Before Midnight (2013)

Fans of Richard Linklater’s critically-acclaimed Before trilogy had to wait nearly 20 years for the third chapter. After Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) first hooked up in Before Sunrise (1995) and in its sequel Before Sunset (2004), we now see them again in Before Midnight (2013). Like its predecessors, the third installment received plenty of awards. The script (by Delpy, Hawke and Linklater) won the Louis XIII Genius Award at the Critics’ Choice Awards, and was named Best Screenplay from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the San Diego Film Critics Society, the Hollywood Film Festival, the National Society of Film Critics, the Indiana Film Critics Association, and the AARP Annual Movies for Grownups Awards. Indeed, one nude scene made Mr. Skin grow up too! In this flick, Jesse and Celine are married but separated. Although they are currently living on different continents, they meet up to take their son (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) and two daughters (Jennifer and Charlotte Prior) to Greece for some family bonding. The reunion is an emotional one for the estranged spouses who start asking themselves (and each other) some tough questions about the nature of love and commitment. While pondering the answers, the couple encounters Achilleas (Yiannis Papadopoulos), Anna (Ariane Labed), Ariadni (Athina Rachel Tsangari), Natalia (Xenia Kalogeropoulou), Patrick (Walter Lassally), and Stefanos (Panos Koronis). Breast of all, we get a nice long look at Ms. Delpy’s bare chest in an extended bedroom scene with her onscreen hubby. Who says full moons don’t rise at midnight?