Before Midnight

This is a universal X-ray of bourgeois love, one that in a few decades will get around to something like Amour.

Hawke and Delpy remain as charming as ever, and their combined goofiness is more endearing than annoying.

Love is messy here, life cannot be controlled, satisfaction is far from guaranteed. Romance is rocky at best. But romance still is.

Though "Before Midnight" is often uncomfortable to watch, it's never less than mesmerizing - and ultimately, a joy to walk with this prickly but fascinating couple again.

"Before Midnight" is heartbreaking, but not because of Jesse and Celine. It's the filmmakers' passions that seem to have cooled.

Before Midnight is fascinating to watch, and so long as Celine and Jesse are communicating, there's still hope.

'Before Midnight' has all the best qualities of 'Sunrise' and 'Sunset' (a love of conversational dialogue, long takes that value the joy of performance and interaction, gorgeous European locations), yet it is a grander and more complicated achievement.

The Greek ruins, once the perfect backdrop for ancient tragedies, now complement the Bergman-esque domestic discord and disillusionment that are about to unfurl.

Everything about Before Midnight rings wonderfully and achingly true.

Hawke and Delpy, who co-wrote the screenplay with Linklater, make this oscillation between badinage and feistiness, cosiness and irritability, look effortless.

The chemistry is so good it is pratically tactile and their conversations, in the natural way of long-term couples, are free-ranging and show how at times of high emotion, arguments and resentment can resurface suddenly to powerful effect.

The previous two pictures were preoccupied with romantic ideals, but this is the real love story. So funny and so wise, it's about how happily ever after is harder than it looks.