Again, Lazy

We should hang out sometime.

This is a quick response to Brandon. Like usual, we're mostly agreeing on this one.

I had just watched Sunset less than 12 hours before watching Midnight. I was (and remain) offended by its sensibilities. The audience is expected to smile and feel overwhelmingly happy that these two have united at last. The film ends with a shot of Delpy dancing and Hawke wolfishly grinning, suggesting that they're about to "black out the windows and have sex for three days" (or something like that, as it's described in Midnight). We are happy about this. Maybe, some in the audience, will reflect on the fact that we shouldn't be, but I fear that most of the peeps who like the first two films think of them as one great love story. There's this "romantic" notion of TRUE LOVE, all else be damned.

I think that you're right that Midnight does call much of this into question. Everything is more complicated and facing consequences is at the heart of the conflict of the film. Even so, the film never really seriously calls into question whether these two do or do not BELONG together. This is true love, all else be damned. We want these two to work things out. We don't want Hawke to leave his lover and reconcile with his ex-wife. It is only ever Jesse and Celine. And, of course, the film ends with another wolfish grin and we get to feel relieved that "love" has struggled through and won once again. It doesn't even matter what the characters want. What I'm trying to point out is that we, the audience, are only and always hoping for these two to succeed. The beauty of Midnight is that it goes out of its way to show to widen the scope of the story and explore how hard their romance is to maintain once it has become entangled in the lives of others.

As for your last paragraph, yeah, sure. I was only pointing out Jesse's words and how they are indicative of a mindset that is self-centered and not other-centered. It's one moment in the film in which Jesse admits that his problems right now are his social entanglements. Being bound to other people restricts his own life. He seeks to be free from these bonds and live with some sort of pure personal freedom. This is surely representative of many people in our general age group, trying to get by without any permanent bonds to anyone or anything. This is inhuman and harmful to one's self. I guess we could argue about this, but I'm not sure that we're really disagreeing.