This film series has been following me around since I was in my early 20′s. It all started with Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004). These two films were not the most enlightening films and the acting at times was a bit of an eye roll. But they were great to get lost in. Totally relatable as I was around the same age as the characters and the actors whenever the films were released.
With ‘Before Midnight’, nine years after the conclusion of Before Sunset, Jesse and Celine live in Paris as a couple, parents to twin girls conceived when they got together. Jesse is also struggling to maintain his relationship with his teenage son, Hank, who lives in Chicago with Jesse’s (now) ex-wife and who, after spending the summer with Jesse and Celine on a Greek island, is being dropped off at the airport to fly home. Jesse has continued to find success as a novelist, while Celine is at a career crossroads, considering a job in government.
As per Wikipedia:
Richard Linklater (Director), Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy all had suggested the possibility of a sequel to Before Sunset. In a video interview in November 2011, Hawke said that he, Delpy and Linklater “have been talking a lot in the last six months. All three of us have been having similar feelings, that we’re kind of ready to revisit those characters. There’s nine years between the first two movies If we made the film next summer, it would be nine years again, so we started thinking that would be a good thing to do. So we’re going to try and write it this year.”
In June 2012, Hawke confirmed that the sequel to Before Sunset would be filmed in summer 2012. Soon after, Delpy denied filming would take place in 2012, stating that they were still only writing the script and that filming would not take place until “sometime in the next year, year and a half.”
However, in August 2012, numerous reports emerged from Messenia, Greece, that the film was in fact being shot there. When asked about the reports, this time Hawke stated that he, Delpy and Linklater were in Greece only to write the film, telling MTV News that “we’re here writing a third installment to Before Sunrise. If it works out, we’ll film it, and if it doesn’t, we won’t. It’s not really worth talking about. I’m just here developing.” However, Hawke and Delpy’s denial was proven to be a ruse when the completion of filming of the new movie, titled Before Midnight, was announced on September 5, 2012, just before the Toronto International Film Festival. Linklater later said that he aimed to take Before Midnight to a film festival in early 2013. Before Midnight premiered on January 20, 2013, at a 9:45 p.m. showing at the Eccles Theatre in Park City, Utah at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. It was then scheduled to have its international premiere out of competition at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival.
