Before Midnight

the most realistic and unforgiving ending to this trilogy. can you love someone while making them feel neglected? can you love and stay with someone even if sometimes they fail to understand you and your needs? can you love them and still hurt them at the same time? after the credits started rolling, i was stunned. i can't move, i can't speak, i can't think. it punched me so hard right on the face. i didn't know the writers gonna be that serious. Before Midnight is the most painful and mature film in this trilogy. it takes everything from the first two films that made those romantic, and put it to confront the ordinary and real life. the story is so realistic. so fucking realistic that i felt it to my soul and that it felt like a commentary to my life. i mean, it's the reality for most couples in their middle lives. it's not as colorful like the first years of being in love. here in this movie, love is no longer their escape from the ordinary life. it became part of their ordinary lives. it FUCKING DESTROYED the romantic idealism and fantasy that the first two films built. couples fight, couples argue, couples say mean things to each other. and that problem was also faced by our favorite characters. and it breaks me that not even the movies can be free from the harsh realities of love and relationships. here in this film, jesse and celine became the german couple on the train. the german couple who became the reason why they talked and met each other. it's so ironic. but it's also beautiful. because it doesn't mean their love has disappeared, the movie argues that real love is much complicated than romantic love stories shows. you don't stop being in love just because you're annoyed. you don't stop caring about someone because you're angry, and you don't stop being attracted to someone because you've been together for years. the film rejects the idea that healthy relationships are supposed to feel romantic all the time. that it's not all sunshine and butterflies. they also became the relationship of jesse and his ex-wife. but what's different here is that they both are not stucked on their own's what-ifs and maybes. they are facing the present without doubts on their pasts. loving means sacrificing. and that's the reality. if there is a way where you can be in love and not sacrificing, take that because it's not something that can easily happen to anyone on anything. here in the movie, it shows that sometimes we need to prioritize something, and in the process we will be sacrificing something. and there's no perfect answer to that, and it's the point of the movie. mature relationships often involve different competing needs and desires. and sometimes, loving someone means sacrificing something. but the question here is how much should we sacrifice before we begin to feel that we are losing ourselves and each other? ** ** celine again is the character that represents that dilemma. she is losing her identity, her self, that celine that jesse fell in love with. and she is losing it to being a partner, a mother, and a friend. what happens to the person that we once were before all of these responsibilities? and that's one of the most important themes this film discusses. That love can provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment in life, but it can also lead to the consumption of our individuality. ** ** the ending is up to anyone to interpret and accept, all the problems that was raised is up to anyone to understand. whether you will like it or not? whether you will agree or not. but that ending for me suggests that love in a long term isn't about the absence of conflict, it's about the ability to return to each other after it, the ability to stay with each other and keep on trying. they are both flawed, but they still choose each other. it's about choosing each other over and over again, despite knowing each other completely and not just this idealized version of each other. and that is harder and more romantic. because not everyone can do that, not everyone loved enough to be like that to each other. as shown through jesse and his ex-wife, and also the reality of millions of people who got divorced in real life. ** ** This movie made me realize that real love isn't proven by never fighting, never changing, or never hurting each other. It's proven by whether, after all the fantasy has disappeared, two imperfect people can still look at each other and say "let's try again."