MIDNIGHT RISING

Pefore Midnight, from writer-director Richard Linklater, premiered to rave reviews at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where 18 years earlier Before Sunrise, the first in a trilogy, made its debut and introduced us to the films' indelible romantics: Jesse (Ethan Hawke), an American tourist, and Celine (Julie Delpy), a Parisian student. In the first film, they meet on a train and decide to spend the day and night walking and talking in Vienna, only to part ways in the morning. In 2004, Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy revisited the characters in Before Sunset, in which Jesse, now married, a father, and a successful writer, is on a book tour in Paris, where he runs into Celine, who s living there.

Before Midnight, which takes place nine years later, picks up in Greece, where Jesse is saying good-bye to his Chicago-bound teenage son. We see that Jesse and Celine are now together, the parents of seven-year-old twin girls. The couple show the wear and tear of complicated lives filled with memories and disappointments, divorce, children, and careers, but their romance still sparkles as Celine asks Jesse, "Would you have talked to me on the train if you were to see me now as a fat, middle-aged mommy?" There is no artifice or movie magic, only the breathtaking locale to provide a cinematic backdrop to their walking and talking and debating the sacrifices necessary to sustain a relationship—and even those made to leave one. Before Midnight humbly triumphs on every level—living up to all expectations—as if this trio had been put on the planet only to make these films.

KRISTA SMITH