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"Director: Richard Linklater; Screenwriters: Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy; Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Jennifer Prior, Charlotte Prior; Running time: 109 mins; Certificate: 15  In 2004, Before Sunset offered a glimmer of hope for lovers Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) on the quest for happily ever after. But was it really meant to be? Spoiler alert! The question is answered - though, only in part - in the opening scene of the second scintillating sequel that comes 18 years after Before Sunrise when the couple first met on a train bound for Vienna. From there, to Paris and now in their early 40s, Jesse and Celine are in sunny Greece where Jesse is trying too hard to be a cool dad. He sees off his son at the airport and obsesses over the bad rap he&amp;#039;ll get from the boy&amp;#039;s mother at the other end as it quickly becomes apparent that she was ditched in favour of Celine. Now, the couple are at a stage in life when they&amp;#039;re questioning their choices. Still, the rapport between Hawke and Delpy is as strong as ever and showcased to great effect by director Richard Linklater who stations his camera in the car and captures the sunbaked hills rolling away in the rear windscreen in one continuous take. The stars share writers&amp;#039; credit with Linklater (as they did on Before Sunset), yet the dialogue feels excitingly off-the-cuff.  Various conversations take many a winding turn and beneath lots of well-observed, witty banter (often stemming from the mundane), hidden anxieties begin bubbling to the surface. The Mars/Venus philosophy is evident in the way Celine insists on voicing her every feeling while Hawke dances around the issues, wary of lighting the fuse that might cause her to blow. Tension builds along with the midday heat, but Linklater lets it slip a tad as the couple return to a writer&amp;#039;s retreat where Jesse (now, a successful novelist) is guest of honour. The crowd is, naturally, made up of intellectuals - all keen to chip in on matters of life and love - and while that makes for some lively chitchat over dinner, it doesn&amp;#039;t have the intensity of the one-on-one scenes. Behind closed doors, there is plenty of bickering, but it&amp;#039;s also clear that Jesse and Celine still desire each other, body and soul. The obstacle to true love is less obvious than in the first two films and because of that, more tantalising. Rather than being pulled apart by geography, time, or a third party, they&amp;#039;re pushed square against their own expectations of what life together should be like. Linklater, having made the most of golden-green landscapes and the glittering Mediterranean, stages the height of the conflict in a swanky but featureless hotel room. Jesse and Celine are left to almost literally bounce off the walls as the witching hour looms, adding to the sense of frustration and claustrophobia that eventually force them to wonder if this is where it ends. A couple persistently digging at each other might have been insufferable to watch except that Hawke and Delpy manage to be goofy, funny, witty and charming, even while they&amp;#039;re fighting. Love is defined only as something hazy and hard to grasp - another philosophical question for Jesse and Celine to chew over - but as long as they&amp;#039;re talking, it just feels right and it feels true.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a488745/before-midnight-review-ethan-hawke-julie-delpy-reunite-in-greece/>