The Before Trilogy (1995/2004/2013)
Directed by Richard Linklater

This one is about Jackie. 

The first time I watched Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013)  I had a vision of romance; a vision that was unsullied by experience. I had known the love and affection of one woman, Karina, and you may call it a lack of imagination or complacency, but it was the only love I thought I needed. But I lacked foresight. The present is not a fixed state despite my belief that it could be. So I started sleeping around. 

I used to believe that the story of Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) was some kind of idealized romance. I used to think that of a lot of my favorite films. I guess it was wish fulfillment, this desire of meeting a beautiful French woman on a train and being afforded the opportunity to roam Vienna, together. It’s the fantasy that Before Sunrise affords you. Frankly, I find few things sexier than having a stirring conversation with someone of the opposite sex, and to have them push your way of thinking, test your intellectual fortitude, and reexamine your worldview in complex and inspired ways. Celine does this for Jesse, and I like to think that Celine feels the same way. 

I didn’t really get that from Jackie. Our first meeting was at the Pick-Me Up Cafe in Wrigleyville after connecting online. I can’t tell you much about the conversation that afternoon because I was too nervous and guilty; all I can remember was not liking the food very much. What followed was two lonely people using each other for sex. She was the second person I ever slept with. I would later discover that I was her first. She was unapologetically kind to me and I was decidedly cruel to her. The excuses are plentiful - from professional frustrations to a lack of intimacy in my relationship with Karina - but the hate I spouted to deter Jackie from engaging with me could never be justified. I thought, if I’m cruel, why would she want to be around me? It seemed to just draw her closer. I lied to her. I lied to Karina. And I lied to myself. An embarrassing life lesson of my own design, and one that I’ll regret until my heart stops beating. 

If Before Sunrise seems a little facile, it’s because it is. Youth affords naiveté and Jesse and Celine’s worlds, like mine in my twenties, were largely unsullied by experience. I go back and forth on which of the trilogy is my favorite, but I often go to Before Sunset for comfort. Here, Jesse and Celine are in their thirties. Jesse, now a writer, has taken the experience that he and Celine shared and used it as material for his novel. His book tour takes him to Paris, where Celine confronts him about it. It’s a more charged film, where the regrets of the past bubble up to the surface. Older, the two are anchored down not only by their moment together and contend with the residual effects of their brief encounter. Nearly a decade ago; in their passion, they experienced what they believed was love. Everything else has paled in comparison. Jesse is now married with a child. He’s terribly unhappy. Celine, meanwhile, has struggled, incapable of finding true love when haunted by her night with Jesse. The two go back and forth but it’s decided the moment they see each other again: Jesse will miss his plane. 

Jesse cheats on his wife, a woman unseen to audiences, with Celine. This perhaps speaks to my mindset, but that ends up functioning in the periphery of things. It’s only after I experienced the cataclysmic existential tremors of my thirties that I woke up to these sorts of things. Yet, it’s difficult to remain awake when overwhelmed by loneliness and despondency. Roaming the streets of Philadelphia in 2022  alone led me to spiral in despair, leaving me to claw for some modicum of attention. Fuck-ups repeat themselves; a new city, a new Jackie, same old mistakes. 

Before Midnight seems to draw the least amount of admiration from viewers, but the older I get, the more truthful it seems. I think it may be the best of the three. In Midnight, Jesse and Celine are together with twin daughters, vacationing in Greece. The reverberations of Jesse’s infidelity are felt immediately. We see him walking with his son from his prior marriage, bidding him farewell at the airport, knowing that with joint custody, the only time he’ll be able to see him is during his summer breaks. Meanwhile, Jesse and Celine exchange the passion of the past with the practicality of the present, assuming roles as parents while still clinging on to the scraps of their autonomy as artists and freethinkers. They’re gifted the luxury of a night out by friends, only to find themselves bickering, analyzing their pasts with a cruel scrutiny that I’m all too familiar with. The film ends on an ambiguous note, your status as a romantic left to decide whether the two will remain together or drift further apart. 

I’ve had countless conversations about that ending. I would agree with a lot of my past partners that the two just can’t be together. But I think that was all rooted in a cynicism that I actively reject these days. As my past clearly reflects this: I’m not great at relationships. But you go through things with people and either see them abandon you or remain by your side. You open up conversation and permit any resentment to fade away in the face of conflict and pain by actively trying to work things out. It is not easy and it is not intended for everyone. But as cloying as it may seem, I’ve found my heart open up by having these incredibly tough conversations. Like Jesse and Celine, I’ve had to make many, many mistakes to carve out a path that I can be proud of. Experience affords you agony and joy. For the first time in many years, the latter is finally catching up with the former. 

Every nine years these films would come out, with the pattern broken when BeFour should/would have been released in 2022. I suppose it’s all left to the guiding hand of the cosmos, and whatever sequels may entail, together or not.