Parenthood is depressing, unlike the romanticism of the first meeting on the train. This film is depressing until Jesse (Ethan Hawke) starts talking about his writing – with the passion almost as full as it was in the first film (Before Sunrise.) The viewer may anticipate the terrible American faux pa at the dinner table, implied by Jesse’s character. But it doesn’t happen. Meanwhile, we become consumed by the conversations with friends about life and love.
Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse are in love, despite their real life conflicts which hit them repeatedly as they attempt to construct and define a family. It doesn’t give the viewer the desire for children, yet reinvigorates a faith in romance and deep conversations – connections with other people. Like coffee and cigarettes, but in Europe.
The beautiful conversations of the previous film (Before Sunset) felt forced. Not so, here. Now in their forties, and parents together, they are still enjoying the same conversations that they had when they met twenty years ago – which is nice while it lasts.
Unfortunately, eventually and inevitably, they devolve into two grownups fiercely arguing about problems with causes outside of their control. The greatest depression that is known, is adults blaming each other, when neither is to blame, - causing a disintegration of the emotional unit which leaves them resenting each other.
They go somewhere romantic, away from their kids – and spend the entire time arguing about the mundane ordinary miseries presenting as their most precious life obstacles, e.g. the ex-wife.
Julie Delpy’s breasts are still pink and French and beautiful. Sex between them still feels awkward and gritty and beside the point.
I don’t hate Jesse, but I can believe many women might think he’s an asshole. I feel a familiarity with him, not as a parent, but as the man in a couple, as a vocational writer, as an intellectual with the roots of a British colony.
The fighting is exhausting, but eventually it winds down to the existential sharing – as an attempt to understand each other. We think, ah this is civil. The argument is only blowing off steam. We forget that Celine is crazy and when she’s really bothered, she will destroy everything in her wake.
They want to always be a solid emotional unit which desires permanent ascension, but that is a fantasy. Love is dirty. True love is lasting and painful. There is no right way to answer the question – did you fuck her? Unless you didn’t, but she wouldn’t ask unless she was already sure that you did. And for the longest time she pretended that it didn’t bother her, even to herself.
We think the film is ending when she leaves with the best line, a line that frustrates, angers and saddens. A line that sets the tone for Jesse’s brave struggle against her denial of their love.
The story never arcs, sometimes bores, but consistently shakes the screen with a crashing ferociousness of raw honesty. It feels real, even though it’s mundane moments are not beautiful.
2.5 stars
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