MovieChat Forums > Before Midnight (2013) Discussion > What's Celines REAL issue? (spoilers)

What's Celines REAL issue? (spoilers)

posted 11 years ago by MoDo12
10 replies | jump to latest

From about 20 minutes into the film until 5 minutes before finish she's basically asking Jesse to leave her.

Now, logic would reveal that she really isn't happy and would like to split, no?

Or is she truly THAT warped from the issues she speaks of in the film to constantly go "Its over I guess" - "I don't love you anymore" - "I ruined your life" and basically "GO away"

I am left to believe that if they planned the script to be the typical love, fight and then make-up - then they failed because the "fight" part was WAY heavy handed and the "Make up" part was too weak to be acceptable.

So back to my question - was she wanting to break up or was she really just messed up?

[–] Clearlylosingit 11 years ago

She could sense Jesse's frustration in their car conversation and knew that eventually he would ask her to move back to America. So, she spends the rest of the day prodding him. Also, we are meant to leave the movie not knowing if they stay together.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] MoDo12 11 years ago

Yes I've seen them all, actually re-watching Before Sunrise as I type this as its been awhile.

-EDIT: I watched Sunrise and Sunset back to back tonight, LOTS of clues in both of them that people are overlooking when commenting on midnight. The time machine as well as critical dialogue regarding how married couples get on each others nerves are mentioned.

[–] Makarov-324 11 years ago

I would need a masters degree in psychology to tell what Celine's real issue is. Just kidding.

There's definitely a lot of foreshadowing of their problems in the first 2 movies. Particularly, Jesse talking about how fooling around is not so bad. Celine talking about wanting to kill her ex boyfriend. Celine asking if he was looking at some other girl.

Even more so in Sunset with the car ride. Jesse joking about how she's nuts. Celine talking about how she wants to do all these hobbies but she never does. Her rant on how she wants men to ask her to marry them but she doesn't actually want to be married.

She has some kind of gender thing going on because she's always fixated on men vs. women (which she asks to stop talking about in the first movie) It also seems like she resents Jesse having a son and uses him to annoy Jesse by purposefully hanging up the phone.

However I think their "make up" is pretty strong. Jesse loops everything back to the first film.

[–] Kurgan-4 11 years ago

Makarov jokingly said that it would take a masters degree in psychology to tell what Celine's real issue is. I'll take that as validation of my qualification to answer your question .

The short answer is that Celine feels very unsatisfied with the current state of her professional and personal lives. She believes that she has sacrificed a lot for her family with Jesse and she feels under-appreciated and misunderstood by him. For a more detailed answer, I've written a fair amount in these two threads:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2209418/board/nest/221252191?d=221955653#2 21955653
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2209418/board/nest/221918431?d=221918431#2 21918431

Any thoughts or comments are welcome!

[–] MoDo12 11 years ago

Very interesting, I actually saw those when reading the comments here and thought they were great write ups. I half heatedly asked because Celines behavior actually reminded me vividly of an ex-GF. I heard her words for what I thought they were - and left (never saw or spoke again) but I've always known there was something else. I had forgotten about it until I saw this movie....lol

Your synopsis certainly does make sense, for both cases.

[–] Kurgan-4 11 years ago

There are a number of reason as to why the message that's sent is not the message that's received and it sounds like you and Jesse might have something in common. Sometimes saying what we really think is too painful or uncomfortable. It's a lot easier to express anger than vulnerability.

[–] Hippo9 11 years ago

The main problem in the relationship is Jesse's passive aggressive personality. He acts like the nice guy but will passive aggressively pester her about living in Chicago (hypothetically) even though she has told him she does not want to talk about Chicago and isn't going to move there. Eventually she gets sick of him pestering her and explodes which makes her look irrational and crazy and makes him look like the calm, rational guy.

The hotel room scene with his infidelity is the same thing. She asks him a direct question about his infidelity with the bookstore girl and he avoids answering it, then turns things around by accusing her of infidelity. In his world he is always the good "nice guy" and she is the crazy irrational one but if you look at it he is the one who knows how to push her buttons.

These two have a huge problem communicating with each other and the cop out time machine ending is not going to fix things. He has to address his passive aggressive problem and she needs to stop complaining and freaking out about everything.

The kids are basically what is keeping them together because they are basically both very unhappy.

This film isn't romantic at all and is a huge departure from the two characters in the first two films. The characters in this film are not meant for each other.

[–] soupman_69 11 years ago

The main problem in the relationship is Jesse's passive aggressive personality.

Funny I would have said the main problem in the relationship is that Jesse is the only one working on keeping them together. Celine is continually acting like a child, mocking serious moments, making no effort to see Jesse's point of view and is unable to communicate her grievances in an assertive way. Jesse is frequently listening to her, paraphrasing what she is saying, asking questions about why she feels that way and then looking for a mutual solution by engaging her with questions to which she jumps to conclusions and attacks him. Jesse isn't perfect, but he's right: she is completely crazy.

[–] sfrsez 10 years ago

those greek pillars she calls legs