I'm sorry, but in real life, if Julie Delpy sings that song to me, about me, my reaction would be to go over, put the guitar down, and start making sweet, sweet love to her right there and then without saying a word.
Of course, that would shorten the movie and remove some of the ambiguity, but that's what would actually happen.
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
But the song wasn't about Jesse. It was about another man. She talked about a person going back to their "Island of Rain." She's talking about someone from England, not an American from Texas. I think Jesse realized that.
I always thought Celine didn't love Jesse as much as Jesse loved Celine. And the third movie kind of shows that. Although I hate the way they turned her into an annoying bitch. She was always the smart one and Jesse was the oblivious one. Before Midnight Jesse is the big intellectual and Celine is dragged down by two kids.
That was the most realistic thing about Before Midnight, Celine was a strong independent woman with big dreams of affecting the world somehow in the other 2 films, but in the 3rd, she was weighed down by marriage and her children's and the mundane stresses of that everyday life, mixed in with the drama of Jesse's ex wife, Celine never envisioned that got herself, she got to a point, as witnessed in the film, where she felt smothered, stifled, misunderstood, thereby making her the annoying bitch you refer to her as.
That is what makes the ending of the trilogy so beautiful, Jesse points out directly to Celine that this is her reality, not a fairy tale, and that she needs to accept it, and after a minute, a look of understanding crosses her face and she has an epiphany and accepts her life, then and there as the complicated mess that it is. A truly realistic, beautiful ending to the best trilogy of all time.
@jimicobain, that was an eloquent appreciation of the Before Midnight ending. Thank you for that
shareThat is what makes the ending of the trilogy so beautiful, Jesse points out directly to Celine that this is her reality, not a fairy tale, and that she needs to accept it, and after a minute, a look of understanding crosses her face and she has an epiphany and accepts her life, then and there as the complicated mess that it is. A truly realistic, beautiful ending to the best trilogy of all time.I can see that interpretation and you've expressed it well JimiCobain (I LOVE that handle!). But I don't remember leaving the theater with that impression. I own the first two and have repeatedly viewed them, but I've only seen Before Midnight once (when it came out) so maybe I need to add that to my collection and watch it again. I remember walking out of the theater thinking that Jesse and Celine were on pretty unresolved, shaky ground sitting at that table. That wasn't your run-of-the-mill marital spat they'd just had. That was a major league, possibly life altering fireworks/fight - getting at what Rabe may have referred to as "under stuff." I don't know...
A truly realistic, beautiful ending to the best trilogy of all time.Gotta disagree w/ you again, my man. This is not a trilogy. It will become at least a tetralogy
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Completely agree. I always thought Jesse was more into Celine also. He makes the effort to endear himself to her more.
shareI see what you're saying, and you make a valid point, it would be hard to resist, but if you were in Jesse's position, with a wife and a son, you might question that urge for a while. It wasn't unrealistic at all. Plus, the film ends shortly after, for all we know, Jesse got up straight afterwards and fed her the white dragon for a week. ?
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