Before Midnight (2013)

[Music] Welcome to Love Factionly, the podcast that analyzes romcoms and romantic films using the science of close relationships. I'm Paul Eastwick, author of Bonded by Evolution. I'm here with Eli Finkle, author of The All or Nothing Marriage and Eli. What are we talking about today? Today we're talking about before midnight. The 2013 finale of Richard Linklater's singular romantic trilogy, starring and co-written by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpey. Some of the themes we'll explore are what intractable conflict looks like, how fights get out of hand, and why truth and harmony are sometimes at odds. And fair warning, we'll be spoiling this movie today and the prequels before sunrise, and before sunset. So if you don't know that we're not fighting, we're just negotiating with knives, then take deep breath, watch this movie, and come back. So Eli, who are the key characters and couples in this movie? As with before sunrise and before sunset, before midnight has two major characters, Jesse and Celine. They were 23 when they met in 1994 and spent the night together in Vienna. They were 32 when they finally saw each other again in 2003 and spent the late afternoon together in Paris. Now in 2012, they're 41, the parents of twin girls, and spending the day together on the Peloponese coast in southern Greece. Jesse, the American, is an established novelist who has left his wife to be with Celine. He's both happy and self-satisfied, but he's anguished that an ocean and an angry ex-wife separate him from his son. Celine, the Parisian, is at a career crossroads. Paul, you characterize her in our before sunrise episode as possessing youthful punk rock angry energy. Now at 41, the youth and punk rock might have faded a bit, but the angry energy is on full display. Before midnight also has an ensemble of secondary characters, including Hank, Jesse's son from his previous marriage, a middle-aged couple named Stefanois and Ariadne, a young couple named Akeleus and Anna, and Patrick, an older English novelist who is hosting all of them for the summer at his seaside villa. So, Paul, those are the chess pieces. Are you ready to give us one minute on how the film moves them across the board? All right. Does not quite capture it, but here we go. On your mark, get set, go. As the film opens, Jesse says goodbye to Hank at the airport, who's returning to the United States after spending the summer with him, Celine and their twin daughters in Greece. Jesse is upset about the distance from his son and in the car he muses about whether the family could move to Chicago, but Celine is concerned about how such a move would affect her career, escalating into tension, but not yet a blowout fight. They arrive at a friend's house. We get a long dinner with several friends, two of whom have arranged for Jesse and Celine to spend a night alone in a nearby hotel. Jesse and Celine water the hotel, and everything seems good, but the mood shifts after Hank calls in the argument from the car resumes. Celine expresses frustration about her stalled career and the sacrifices she feels she has made while Jesse believes she is overreacting. Other issues come up like Jesse's relationship with his ex-wife, their division of responsibilities, and unresolved possible prior infidelities. Celine eventually leaves the hotel room and goes to sit outside at a cafe. Jesse eventually follows her in attempts to diffuse the situation by pretending to be an older version of them self-sending Celine a message from the future. Celine initially rejects this approach, but then she agrees to play along the film, and then big usely with the fight perhaps over but far from resolved. Very nice, 59.3. There it is. Okay. So yes, here we are at the end of the trilogy with a movie that certainly brings a different mood and a different energy than the prior two. In terms of what this movie means to me, I just want to talk here about one of the more positive moments in the movie which really resonated with me and I'm going to go to the main couple here that I would want to emulate and that's that young couple that you mentioned at the top when they're describing what it's like to date long distance. Now I think the movie does a clever thing by getting them to talk about what it's like to have a relationship essentially over Skype that in contrast to where Jesse and Celine were 20 years earlier, these two can communicate very easily across distance. Yeah. And I love the whole thing with them like falling asleep together and it being kind of embarrassing when I was first starting my relationship with Allison. We would do a similar thing, but I tend to kind of talk as I'm falling asleep and I would say absurd ridiculous things I would talk about going to find the risotto in the ice cave and other things that make no sense and she would write them down and then read them back in the next day. And the princess is epic. Well, is it epic? It's a much more really weirdly mundane. All right, so what about you? I think if I had to pick my primary relationship to the movie, it's gratitude. I'm grateful that Lunklater and LP and Hawke gave us this trilogy together and it's remarkable to see it because of course the actors are aging in real time along with the characters. So they're 18 years older than we first saw them and then their characters are also 18 years older. And I think it yields new insights that we wouldn't otherwise be able to get about things like the nature of interdependence, how relationships change over time. And I revisited before this conversation our previous episodes about before sunrise and before sunset. And one of the things we talked about with regard to the first movie, the sunrise movie, is they had this conflict. It was about gender. They're sort of an age old battle and the battle of the sexism. They eventually said, you know what? Let's not talk about this. And we talked a little bit like how much do you have to deal with these issues. And then in the second movie, there's another thing where you commented that some of their conflicts now your exact line was it feels more touchy and like there are more raw nerves here nine years later. And then this movie is really a bow on nerve. Yes, it's all nerve. And it's about some of those same issues that were forecasted. But look, they've known each other in that first movie for like a few hours. They're not going to have a future together. They can sweep these things onto the rug and it doesn't matter. 18 years later, they're married with kids. And these things really do matter. And we see that in these movies, maybe better than anywhere we've ever seen that before. It's interesting. I mean, I let me just acknowledge your thesis right off the bat. I'm sure we're going to come back to this that some of this was forecasted. I think that there are there are moments of that in here that are really cool movie and screenwriting choices. Honestly, as a matter of like relationship science, I kind of don't know what to do with it. Interesting. Because on the one hand, obviously, relationship problems follow from things that happened in the past. But one could also take a meaning here that is like, you really should have seen this comment. And I don't have that perspective. Interesting. But yeah, well, okay. So let's get into it. Because I think you and I both agree like boy, there's a lot here. A lot. That the movie's capturing about, I mean, look, sometimes there's conflict in the movie. And sometimes people handle that conflict badly. And so if that's what you wanted to see, this movie is right here showing it to you. So, okay. The fundamental conflict itself, it's profound. It is challenging to resolve because their preference is very much point and opposite directions. And by the way, in the science, what researchers often do is they will ask couples to bring a conflict in with them. Because the assumption is like what you're fighting about doesn't matter as much as how you're fighting about it. And this is kind of why? Because most people don't experience this precise conflict that is sitting at the intersection of do they move to Chicago or do they stay in Paris? And who wants what? And why? But in this case, we see something that's often called a demand withdrawal problem. Yeah, you're right. Which is really just reflected in the fact that the status quo benefits one person in this case, Celine. And the new situation that Jesse wants would require a sacrifice and a major change on her part. And that's the thing that they're trying to navigate here and yeah, doesn't go so great. Yeah, the demand withdrawal literature is fascinating. I remember this from, you know, back when I was in grad school, then the early 90s, there was a big development about this because there had been some gender stereotyping that like women are kind of nags. And men are like, why are you bothering me all the time? And then somewhere along the way, researchers started manipulating. Is this something that you would like to change about your relationship? Or is this something your partner would like to change about the relationship? And you know what? It turns out that regardless of gender, the person who wants the change is in the nagging role and the person who doesn't really want the change is in the why are you bothering me role? And we really see that in the movie. I saw what you did. There's a line in here. There's a back and forth in that huge fight that they had in the hotel where Celine is sort of talking in general and then she says, I don't know what's going to happen. And Jesse says, let me tell you what's going to happen, the same thing that always happens, nothing. Because he's the one who wants the change and she's the one who's really resistant to it. Yeah, so it's interesting too, because you know, we also see in the science that many times the things that couples experience conflict over, these are like problems that are kind of always there. There's like a famous John Gottman statistic that's like, oh, 69% of couples problems are these sort of stable, ongoing things. Now, sometimes when we think about stable, ongoing problems, you know, we think like, oh, like you're a slob and I like to be neat. Those are like differences in who we are. Maybe, but in many cases too, it's going to be more like this, where it's like their life could move in these two different directions that have very different implications. And if they do nothing, one thing is going to happen. They are going to stay in Paris and Hank is going to grow up. Yep, without Jesse. And that's just going to be the life that they look back on. So this is more of a forking pads, this kind of problem than we are two different people kind of problem. But I don't know for my money, this I think captures what a lot of people ultimately experience in relationships. I think this discussion of the default is the status quo. And the status quo is to stay in Paris. Speaks to this broader idea of power dynamics in relationships. And there's lots of research and ideas and the social sciences about the nature of power. There's a particular like social psychological and also relationship science perspective on power. Sometimes we talk about the principle of least interest or the principle of lesser interest. And the idea there is if I need this relationship more than you do, then you have power over me. And I saw a lot of things like that in this movie. And you know, she regularly is either threatening to leave or telling him she doesn't love him anymore or saying this is how it's all going to end. And at least as far as we can see, he's willing to do anything to keep the relationship. And so from that point of view, she's in this position of relationship power. She needs the relationship less than he does. And I did track down some of the recent research. This is work from our friends Ali Farrell and Jeff Simpson. They developed the relationship power inventory. So if you wanted to assess, you know, with the extent to which you have power in your relationship, you'd indicate the agreement that you have with items like when we make decisions in our relationship, I get the final say or I am more likely than my partner to get my way when we disagree about issues in our relationship. And you could imagine Jesse and Celine filling this out. And they probably would agree that when push comes to shove, she's a bit more likely to get her way about these major issues than he is. Well, it's interesting because I mean, I see what you're talking about. Is she? Does she need the relationship less than Jesse does? I'm actually not. It's not obvious to me. It's it's a great question about whether she would be just as happy without it, which I think is the question that you're asking. I'm focusing on the dynamic, the communication that's happening between them. And at least several times. And in fact, going back to the second movie, I don't know if you remember, there's that part in the car in the second movie. And she eventually is like, you know, Uber driver pull over the car. I'm getting out and he's like, no, no, anything. I'll do anything. Just please stay in the car. And you see some of that here as well. And you never really see the reverse where it feels like he's got a foot out the door. It feels like he's always saying, I'll do what it takes to make this last. Well, it's interesting. I mean, in the demand with draw pattern, what often happens is that the again, the person who wants the status quo. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Which we do associate with being the person in the position of at least structural power. But the person who wants the status quo to remain that what happens is these folks get overwhelmed. You're too physiologically aroused and they're just like, I'm out. Right. And again, it's like we traditionally associate that with men. But as you pointed out, like that's actually not what it is. It's the person who doesn't want to engage. Yeah. But let's transition to how they handle this conflict. Because I think in some ways, this is the core of the movie. And I think even though it's like a third of the movie is what most people remember about. Which is, I mean, the mother of all knock down, drag out fights, which is made extra heartbreaking by the fact that there are many, many moments in this fight where you can see them starting to pull themselves out of it. And then they slide right back into the nastiness. And I think, yeah. And so the part that I want to really focus on is that when they're being nasty to each other, I kept thinking, regardless of who was talking, nope. Don't say it that way. No, no, you had another choice. You had another option. And this I think is like the fundamental relationship science perspective is that in a conflict, you always have a choice between responding in like the hot, generalizing way, you know, making it bigger, making the problem larger. You can always respond in a way that, you know, follows up your partner's complaint with your own complaints. You can always deliver ultimatums. You can always bring things up with an accusatory or a hostile tone. Or you could do the opposite of those things. Yeah. That's great. Or deescalate, right escalate or deescalate and they keep choosing to escalate. It is like, please stop. Please stop. Oh my god. Please stop. Yeah. I felt like yelling at the screen because rather than talking about the things that the partner did, Celine, you did this thing and it hurt my feelings. They rapidly get to characterological assaults about what's deeply, deeply wrong with the other person and frequently they adopt a pretty contemptuous way of addressing each other. It's really agonizing. They don't like each other very much and that feels like so sad about the whole thing. Yeah. Compared to the prior two movies is like, I don't know, like she kind of has no tolerance at all for his like author lifestyle and he has no tolerance at all for her feminist ideals. I mean, they just seem to be two people who don't like each other and we know that's not true. That's not true. Right. I mean, right. It's not true, but it sure feels that way in the moment and I think what a lot of people experience when they go through conflict like this is like, why am I, why? I don't know why I'm in this relationship with this person who deeply dislikes me to my core and it's hard to dial that man. I love the way you characterize that because as I think about what you said, she admires that he's an author. I mean, I know she says nasty stuff about it in real time and she did in the prior movies and this movie, it's not clear. You know, it's hard to imagine that she doesn't admire him being an author and he is a feminist and I think he admires her feminism and it's like, they can't find it. It's like the admiration and respect and appreciation. It's like when the anger kicks in and the conflict escalates, those warm feelings and respect and admiration that they have for each other are just weirdly elusive and so you get these nasty, nasty exchanges and it's hard to imagine that that's really the way they feel about each other. Yeah. Let me talk to a little bit about negotiation because to some extent, what you can argue is that, well, what we're seeing here is a negotiation that goes awry because of the emotions involved and because, again, when you feel like you're negotiating with somebody who deeply dislikes you and it has no respect for you, like this is often what's going to transpire. Now, I honestly, I'm a little ambivalent about using the logic of negotiation when it comes to relationship conflicts but there is a little bit of work on this that's interesting. So one note in the negotiation literature is generally speaking, perspective taking is a good thing to do. Trying to take the perspective of the person you're negotiating with not because you're going to like, you know, outwit them or, you know, do some clever maneuvers or something. Right, exactly. But it's actually because you're better able to see how we can grow the pie. Yes. Or you're better able to see how we can think outside the box. Come up with the third way. This can be better for both of us. Okay. And just, you know, throughout the fight, there's no perspective taking at all. I think what's worse about all of this is that when we negotiate with somebody who is close to us rather than a stranger, we already kind of come in expecting them to have a little bit of generosity right off the top. And so when conflicts get like this, not only is it totally violating our expectations, but, you know, it's going to make it harder for us to find the possible solutions here. And I'm not saying I have the solution for these two. I mean, this is truly a tricky, nearly intractable conflict, but there was no way they were going to get there. They certainly were not fighting like this. And I do think something that you mentioned earlier can inform our understanding of this lack of negotiation, which is even though the movie only covers some number of hours, it all takes place on one day, it's clear that they have had this conversation again and again and again. And Jesse has said again and again and again, boy, I'd really like to be nearer to Hank. What can I do? And they've had a conversation and they ultimately ended up thinking we need to stay in Paris. And so when he brings it up, you just can tell this is not the first time this has come up. They've done this a thousand times. And what we don't know is maybe they've had a bunch of pretty reasonable negotiations, the first 25 times they've talked about it. And they weren't able to come up with a solution that worked and Celine got her way a little more than Jesse got his way. And so he's the one who keeps bringing it up and she's like, enough already, enough. Yeah. So another thing that's relevant to all of this is and why this whole thing, even though it's hard to watch, rings very true, is the historical origin essentially of this tension that they're experiencing, that what I find compelling about it is that it's not like some personality difference between the two of them, fundamentally. It was actually caused by a single dire moment in time when they had to move from New York to Paris suddenly because she had a complicated birth, which then led to a cascading series of events that led the ex-wife to move Hank from New York to Chicago, causing the challenges with the custody. And one of the reasons why it's hard to just sit down and have a conversation about what to do about it now because it inevitably brings up the 45 other things that it's connected to. Yeah. So I think that also captures the nature of how a lot of ongoing relationship problems will. You know, that was a pretty subtle thing you picked out. You're totally right that the real root of this was kind of beyond their control. Yeah. And yet, it is now deeply, deeply embedded and they have to deal with it. And I don't know what to say. Like, I don't think we have base rate information on like what percent of intractable conflicts started due to something that was outside of our control versus one of us made a mistake. But it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the roots of these major conflicts that couples have are things that were at least to a significant degree outside of their control. And yet here they are 14 years later still sort of rehashing the fight that began under those highly nebulous circumstances 14 years ago. Yeah. I think that's right. Look, one other thing about this conflict that I think rings true is that I alluded to this earlier. It's not uniformly hostile. There are some good moments in there. And there's sort of this classic idea that bad is stronger than good. And it only takes a few negative interactions to cause dissatisfaction in couples that actually you have to exhibit a great many positive interactions in order to counterway one bad interaction. So, you know, their ratio here positive to negative. I mean, it's, I think it's more negative than positive than we see. Yeah. I mean, even if we take the whole day, we take the whole day, okay, maybe there was more positive than I don't know. Actually, it's probably close to 50-50. But, but that ain't going to do it. That's a recipe for dissatisfaction. You got to have many more, I mean, classically, the famous Gottman ratio, five to one. There's nothing magical about five positive to one negative. Probably ballpark. Right. I mean, the point is you got to do a lot more. Yeah. Positive. The negative because the negative interactions really stand. That's right. Now, there is something else we've been dancing around this whole time, which is her feminist views and how they intersect with the conflict that they are having here on screen. So, I'd like to play the relevant back and forth between the two. Oh boy. It's good. All right, audience. You got to ask for this. Buckle up. You're going to get it. It's on. Okay, I don't want to be one of these women. Like marriage is important to gaze or contraception to women rights. It's the same with giving up my hopes, with the millions of women that I've had to give up their hopes. I'm not going to do it. This is bigger than me. This means more than me. Wow. Bravo. The Nobel Committee is taking note. I'm just, oh, I think I'm going to alert Sweden. Okay. I mean, it must be a full-time job carrying that much feminine oppression. It is. Who suffered so much growing up in middle class Paris. I mean, the agony in the trenches of the Sorbonne and the post-feminist era, I can't imagine. You're an asshole. Oh boy. Yeah. I wanted you to know first. The reason why this is so interesting in the context of the fight between Jesse and Celine is it adds a broader context where she's speaking not just for herself, her interests against Jesse's interests, but her interests, Jesse's interests, and the interests of millions of oppressed women over the decades and frankly centuries. And one of the things that's interesting in this context is the literature on victimhood. There's many, many lines of research on this and nobody wants to be a victim. What's interesting is that claiming the mantle of victimhood status does in fact get you entitled. People believe that you are morally entitled to get more resources to get apologies. And I'm not making a claim that she's trying to use it strategically in the service of trying to get her needs met. Yeah. I think she genuinely feels it. I totally agree with you. She does believe it. It's interesting. You know, how would he react? Well, I think he thinks I thought we were having a conversation where Jesse and Celine were figuring out whose interests and now the deck feels stacked if it's Jesse and Celine plus 10 million people. I mean, he certainly reacts in about the most condescending in business. He does. He really does. You could imagine and perhaps that is because he sees it as a manipulative tactic in this moment. It will become clear later that he also knows that this is a true thing about her and actually does express her values. Absolutely. But there's definitely seems to be an issue. In conflicts, we're always trying to find a way of getting our partners to see our side and have some empathy for us. Yes. And Jesse's doing that too with a genuine way, with the way he talked about missing Hank and feeling like he screwed up as a dad. Yeah. And what we're trying to do is bring our partner to our side, get them to give a little something. And yeah, that was an example of how that didn't work in this case for Jesse. But you bring up an interesting point too, which is, is there such thing as like an imperial preference or an imperial observation that yes, but I stand in for all these other people or there's a broader systemic issue here. And therefore, that means that my preferences should be weighed far beyond your preferences. I mean, I think we can both sit here and say like, if people are going to bring in imperial preferences like that, it's kind of hard to have a discussion about it. And look, I admire her political commitment. It may be that there's going to be a tradeoff between how strongly she can commit to the principle that the personal is the political while also trying to make the relationship work as smoothly as it could. It might be that there is an inherent tension between those two goals. Well, if I may, for a moment, I actually think to some extent, and I've been doing this too, we talk about intractable conflicts and we talk about trade-offs, I think we are falling into the same trap, that they are in, which is that these are two poles fundamentally pulling in different direction. Right? The word trade-off implies that the more of one, the less of the other. And sometimes we love trade-offs. Sometimes I'm skeptical of trade-offs because I think what trade-offs do is they ignore the negotiation tactics of growing the pie third way, etc. Again, I don't know what the solution exactly is here. I just know that nobody really came up with one. No, they did describe the discussion. Yeah. I also noticed something interesting. It's almost like a throwaway, but that's something that's just so wonderful about these movies. Yeah. So the middle-aged Greek couple gives Jesse Insaline this beautiful gift. And the gift is they're going to babysit the kid so that Jesse Insaline can have this romantic sexy getaway in a hotel nearby. And it lands really badly. So, Leena is sort of stressed out. This is not how she wants to be spending the night. They try to say, "Look, if you can get your money back, please take it back." And they can't get the money back. They insist that Jesse Insaline take the gift. Come on, you're going to enjoy it. You need this moment together. You need this time. And I sympathize with Jesse Insaline for feeling like this was kind of intrusive. It's a little strange to react so negatively to somebody doing something so clearly generous, but gifts can be intrusive and controlling. And I thought it was interesting how the movie dealt with that. That's interesting. So people do sometimes experience gifts as intrusive and controlling. That's fascinating. Because, essentially, you're expecting the person to react to a certain way. Show me the gratitude, show me the gratitude. Show me the gratitude. Yeah. And look, because I want you to have a romantic night, now you guys need to be connecting in the right way. And I think Celene in particular is like, "I don't appreciate all this pressure." And I tried to decline it and you didn't let me. Yeah. You know one other thing about the table scene is we get a Reprise of some of the bad ideas about gender from the earlier movies and I think in the prior episode or episodes I think I put this in gets wrong because I was like actually having these toxic ideas about gender What is it here? It's like oh what are you gonna do get mad at a frog for being green? And and so but here I'm putting in gets right because it was a forecast Negativity to come yeah, so it isn't something you can just sort of laugh off there it was so yeah That's right. It's also such a bummer too that like their origin story Has changed. I mean it is taken on all these negative tones like what like when they're describing the prior movies I'm like what are they describing? We saw it movie that I saw we were there we were there It didn't look like some macho thing He's attracted to like you know some airhead woman who's just like oh you're right like that that wasn't what we saw Oh, I know it's we said I said it earlier But it's something that's so brilliant about the movie is that they have a range of views They have the views that we have they also saw what we saw but in these really enraged Agreeved moments Everything takes on this like ugly cast including those gorgeous Experiences they had in Vienna and Paris so now traveling over to misconceptions and again because like This movie is just doing a beautiful depiction of something that's very hard to look at Yeah, but but I want to offer one critique and and in part this is a movie is a critique of the movie and I understand why I made this choice But the twins are connoisseid line Actually more than sideline. Yeah, these look like the most well-behaved children who have ever existed? Yep. Yep. Number one and two. Yeah, and so it actually makes their lives as parents look to my eyes Remarkably cushy. That's a good point compared to what most parents experience Yeah, you have this nice drive where you can talk to each other where your kids are sleeping soundly in the back seat Even as you're getting a little heated with each other and then they Obetionally go into the store and then where are they for actually the rest of the time? I guess they read the kids table or something anyway entertaining themselves like angels. Yeah, right They've no child care be both still working. I don't know so okay, but but we're right. We don't want that movie We don't want that movie with the kids of treating I get it but but but but here's my critique It's that we know that the presence of kids is stressful for couples on average and we later learn This is a major source of tension in their relationship But we didn't get to see it. We saw Jesse's angst at saying goodbye to Hank We see his anguish in his relationship with this kids We don't see how the twins are causing the challenges in their relationship. We just hear about it I think that does Celine's case a little dirty. Wow. That's a great point Yeah, like it makes it easier for us to empathize with Jesse's character than with Celine's because we see the parenting related challenges that are salient for him Yeah, I mean she does periodically say things like you know, I'm cleaning up You know pee off the toilet from you and your son so we know that she has some things here that she's upset about But you're right. We don't feel them in the way that we felt the farewell to Hank Well, I might be leaning in on the like faulty perspective on on Celine here But you know in most of what we've talked about this far when we talked about you know contempt and those sorts of things We've split it pretty close to 50 50. I think which is pretty fair That said I think there is a small subset of what she does That is maybe beyond the pale maybe beyond like this is You know people getting hot and misbehaving in a in a fight They're things that are said that I think it would be really hard to come back from from from both But but I think maybe especially from her let me actually play the part that I think gets pretty close to psychological abuse You know something The way you write in your books people come up to me and think I make love to some Wildcat handry Miller type ha You like to have sex the exact same way every time When you got it you got it. Kissy kissy. Titi titi pussy I'm a man of simple pleasures Yeah, very simple and I've been meaning to tell you that lately You know handry Miller on any level boy Like he said nasty stuff to her too. So I I don't want to pretend this is one sided It's interesting that she's really mocking him in terms of his sexuality because That's one of the major things that people who talk about psychological aggression Talk about it's like sometimes they'll talk about calling your partner ugly or fat or like a bad lover and these are Patigories that are viewed as like oh Nice below the belt so to speak and I'm reminded here of something we talked about a couple times before called the Dormat effect and so if I were to say what I think the movie gets wrong It's I think I can imagine this relationship persisting as it has Or I can imagine him sustaining high self respect But I can't really imagine both of those things and and you'll remember from Laura Lukies and others the dormat effect research that shows When we forgive others we respect ourselves more But only if they've made a man's only if they've made overtures and She's mostly not doing that and I'm worried about him and I don't find it plausible that if She's treating him this way and the resolution to that which is what it looks like is he makes himself smaller and Abases himself to try to get her back. I can see that relationship lasting I can't see him retaining self respect in the relationship But the version of it that we get is the relationship is persisting and he retains self respect Which is the part that I think I could be a misconception I yeah, I you know I'm partially with you here I think for me What he does toward the end where he kind of reenacts the Not reenacts he reimagines his original time traveler bit. Yeah from the first movie I think that is a correct depiction of how People can recover from conflicts. Mm-hmm positive bids Where you try to turn things around and remind the other person about what you value in them and what you love about them and to his credit in that final scene he does Reaffirm her feminism by talking about her daughters will grow up to be eye-conscious Yeah, okay, so so he takes it back yes, he tries to So so I mean you talk about it as like how can he have self-respect and do that? Well, then I think then the logical extension of that is that then people Can't have close relationships. I just I just think what he's doing is necessary And it is also necessary that she come to meet him there which she kind of does I think where I Share your concerns about them and their future is that I just think there's so many things in this whole sequence that Can't be unsaid. I don't know how you unsaid them again. He tries She could try to take back the things that she said in the in the clip earlier She can try to take back that I don't love you anymore. I don't know. It isn't gonna work So so yes, there are some things in fights that are below the belt that you can't unsee or that you can't unhere I think we saw a bunch of them here Yeah, and I think the only way back is to try to reconnect and try to make bids and that's what he's doing One of the thing that that I think is embedded in all of this is There's a tension in this fight. He at some point is saying Look look at us like we're struggling Ha ha ha and he's clearly not blaming and he opens the wine and he pours it and she's not having it I do think she had a legitimate point of view too Which is no I'm not ready to gloss over this and drink wine with you and then have a sexy night when there's something This massive that's happening between us and I do think it's one of the major strengths of the movie is that The two of them kind of confront attention between how Strongly are we going to pursue truth even at the expense of our ability to get along? Versus harmony even at the expense of glossing over some uncomfortable truths. Yeah And I agree this is a perpetual thing and in any kind of close relationship right are you pulled to resolve the conflict because you feel it in your bones Or are you pulled toward the you know the goal of having a nice evening together? Yeah, and and right you kind of see them both like ping ponging back and forth between those things Yeah throughout and it's it's very Very sad. All right. In terms of are we okay with this? I mean, you mentioned a little bit earlier sort of the intersection of the political and the personal. So now if we're sort of morally speculating here, look, if people wanna say like, personal relationships must be political, you must carry the weight of your politics with you into your relationships. As a relationship to researcher, I'm not too hot on that. It doesn't have like a great recipe for having a good relationship, but that being said, there are gonna be many cases where people nevertheless feel the political in their relationships. And I think when that happens, you have to sit there and acknowledge it and work with it. It is fully related. So I don't wanna advise it, but also sometimes it's there and it's real. And like me doing 60% of the housework is fundamentally different than you doing 60% of the house. I mean, it's like these things aren't exactly the same because of history, because of context, because of politics, because of culture itself. And you're right, even if you were to say, like, oh boy, that's gonna complicate everything, like trying to deny it or sweep it under the rug isn't really a viable option either. Right, right, exactly. So I mean, this is why they're in a bind. Okay, what do you have here? I have a question for you. So we're now at the end of a movie, but we're also at the end of a trilogy. And I have spent a lot of time trying to wrap my head around, what is it that link later at all are saying about the nature of romantic love? And if you could imagine a world in which like nobody saw these movies at age whatever 16, or everybody saw these movies at age 16, are the messages that they're sending about romantic love? Healthy, are they problematic? Do you have thoughts about any of this? Okay, so this is fascinating, because I mean, look, I mean spoiler alert, I'm gonna end up giving all three of these movies, somewhere in the neighborhood of four or five restaurants, like these are movies that capture the nature of relationships very, very well. In my view, I also think they're masterpieces. Okay, so setting that so, but, but, but, if somebody wanted to come to me and say, before sunrise, glamorizing, love it first sight, am I right? Before sunset, just cheat on your wife, what's the big deal? Go for your one and only who was a continent away. Okay, and this movie like, oh, I guess people can't work through that conflict. You could find a very cynical message in here. And I don't exactly have a response to those. That's right, if you wanna pull out those threads, those threads are in here. But I think there are so many other deep, profound truths. I could tell you, the first movie is about expansion and self-disclosure and vulnerability. I could tell you that the second movie is about hard, truly hard choices that tear people apart. And I could tell you that the third movie is about what it's like to truly love somebody and to truly be stuck in a very difficult conflict with them. And that all these things are deep and profoundly true. So I am so happy that this trilogy exists and yeah, does it have some messages that are kind of a bummer and maybe aren't fully truthful about the way relationships work? I totally grant that, but on the whole, I'm pretty pleased. - I'm glad I asked you that. That was a very fun tour down memory. - I think I basically agree that like, so I have a daughter who's 16 and starting to date. And if I would I be happy with her having seen these three films in terms of how ready she would be to engage in a romantic lifetime. - Yeah. - Yes, I mean, the third one, the one that we talked about today is hard to watch at times. It's arguably cynical, but even this one ends on this beautiful note that they're still working at it and she was one and a half feet out the door and he made a meaningful overture and she met him in that crucial last moment she met him there. And if the message is, you know, you can have a lot of passion early on, some of that stays, but relationships are difficult once you're maybe married with children and you're gonna fight and have all these hard times, but with some effort and some real dedication to making it work, you can come through even the hardest parts and have a real shot for making things happy in the long run. I like that message, I'm all in. - Yeah. - All right, so for quotes, I picked out two positive ones. I wanna show the moments where the two of them are kinda getting the right. So first let's play Selene's. - He's fine. He's a great kid, okay? But the truth is he doesn't need you the way he used to. He missed the opportunity to be with him every day of his childhood, you just did. And you can cry about it, but he's growing up. You're a great father in other ways. Okay, you got divorced, like millions of other people, was it ideal, no? But listen, if in one month you still want me to quit my job and give up everything I've been working towards all these years just to ask me, but right now I feel the same way I always have. I would move back to the US if that diseased XY for views would give us joint custody, but every other weekend amounts to shit Jesse. That's less than 30 days a semester, and I don't think it's worth it for us to change our entire lives over that kind of time. - I know you're right. - Right, right. - diseased XY. - I know. - I know. - She's still punk rock. That's great point. - Okay, great point. - But also, no, the real point here is like, look, she is validating that he's a great father and coming up with a concrete plan of action. And saying like, bring this up again in a month if you're still feeling like this. And like, oh, we could have stopped. We could have stopped right here. But we didn't, but anyway, I like that moment. Now, let me quickly bring up one for Jesse. So here we go, this is the end. - I'm sending you this young man, yes, young, and he will be your escort. God knows he has many problems and has struggled his whole life connecting and being present even with those he loves the most. And for that, he is deeply sorry. By you are his only hope. Selene, my advice to you is this, you're entering the best years of your life, looking back from where I sit now. These middle years are only a little bit more difficult than when you were 12 in Matthew and Vanessa danced all night to the BG's, how deep is your love? Selene, you will be fine. Your girls will grow up to become examples and icons of feminism. - Nice one. - Well, you know what I just noticed? There's a post-cript of models. - Like, I definitely teared up at that. I'm almost tearing up again. But in part because not just the validating of the icons of feminism, but also there's some history here that we don't know, but he's like tapping into vulnerability that she's exhibited in the past. And it works. It brings her back in and, whoof, thank God. So we remember this movie for the conflict, but there were these moments too. - Yeah, I'll limit myself to one. And it's in the same spirit. It's also from Jesse in the final scene. He says, - I put up with plenty of your shit. And if you think I'm just some dog is gonna keep coming back, then you're wrong. But if you want true love, then this is it. This is real life. It's not perfect, but it's real. And if you can't see it, then you're blind. All right, if I give up. - Boy, you know, this is real life. It's kind of like a thesis statement for the movie, even the trilogy. And it's a nice counterpoint to some of the extremely romantic stuff we saw in the earlier ones. It's like you sold your fourth and it's hard, but this is love and you make it work. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, the movie does nail this. Okay, what do we wish we knew? I want to credit Allison for this insight, 'cause we were thinking about, you know, Celine and, you know, doing more emotional labor, doing more mental accounting, doing more housework. And actually, Allison pointed out like this is kind of like the social loathing literature. But I actually don't think that's been applied to relationships. So social loathing is like the thing we associate with like, oh, if like three dudes are pulling on a rope versus 10 dudes are pulling on a rope. If it's 10 dudes, you don't pull us hard. Okay, that's the average person. - Yeah, right, the average person doesn't pull us hard. Okay, 'cause now other people are covering for me. But it's interesting, in general, there is a gender difference in the social loathing effect on average, even if it's a rope pulling. Women don't social loaf as much as men do. - Wow, interesting. - Yeah, but that doesn't feel sufficient to capture what's going on in relationships, why you see that overall gender imbalance in terms of housework and emotional labor and other things, that there are probably other insights we can get from the social loathing literature too, which also get into things like preferences and expertise and assuming the other person. since God had handled and failing to check it. And there's so many different directions that that could go. So anyway, I'd love to see more stuff like that, trying to understand those housework, daily work challenges using like a social loafing kind of lens. - I love it too. We talked earlier about the fact that Jesse presumably is bringing up his major issue. Like I want to be closer to my son, that issue, repeatedly, and Saline is kind of over it. And I'm sympathetic to both sides. But what is the right etiquette for relitigating conflict? We have a fight, we come up with some resolution. Maybe we're not equally thrilled, but it is a resolution for now. And then later, I'm like, no, I'm still not feeling good about it. How many times do I get to do that? Are there circumstances under which it's more or less legitimate that I keep bringing it up? I feel like it would be nice to understand that better. So the people talk about the marriage, check up and stuff. Like isn't the idea like, okay, we come up with a plan of action, and then we deliberately check in again. I understand like people can also like overdo this. But then we like, we check in again in a week or a month, and we see how it's going, and that like that's a better way of going about it. But I agree. I mean, people also talk about like, there are some intractable differences that couples have, and they talk about the need to accept those differences. And I gotta be honest, I don't quite understand where the line is on that. I don't know the line. Yeah. On this podcast, we rate movies from one to five stars. Autosity first. How many stars? I mean, it's five. It's five, and it makes me love the earlier ones even more. I mean, I don't, I think this is one of the greatest ever achievements for depicting romantic relationships on screen. I love it. Let me also say I would love to see a link later movie from the perspective of Jessie's ex-wife. I think her story would be quite interesting too. I think it's interesting that they also sideline her. I think they have to, but the like, like she's a drunk. Yeah, they villainize her. I mean, it's a convenient choice, but whatever. Why am I complaining with this movie's five stars? That's what he's fantastic. And it's a much harder set than the other two. That's right. And it's moving as well. And it's pretty fantastic on this podcast. We also rate these movies on rust bolts. Now the rust bolt is named after Eli's advisor, the late great Carol Rustbolt pioneer of close relationships research with five stars indicating a near perfect depiction of the nature of close relationships. I think I'm gonna go with four, and it's very close to five. But I'm gonna go with four just because there is a little bit of that strain of cynicism in here that you can pull out some pessimism about the nature of men's and women's relationships. And I think that's telling me something about what people who have these sort of extremely gendered beliefs think. But I worry in here too, there's a little bit of like couples, they're doomed, huh? And I'm not here for that. But if you wanna show us conflict and you wanna show us how it goes sideways, this movie did it and bravo to that. - Yeah, I mean with regard to your quibble, I remember when we talked about the first movie, we said with their sort of gender essentialism that they were playing with fire. And I think what we're seeing here is a bit of a conflagration from that. I am at five stars on this. I could quibble too. It's like clearly relevant to a certain social class of person, so generality has his problems. The dorm ed effect issue that I raised earlier was troubling to me, but holy shit. It's like a masterpiece in terms of how many aspects of relationship dynamics it gets right. I just was awed by what it achieved. - Yeah, I totally get that. I really am on the edge here, but this has been the LoveFactually podcast. I am Paul Eastwick. I've been here with Eli Finkle now. In two weeks, we're gonna check out a movie with a good friend of ours. And this movie, I'll just say, it's an oldie, but it's a goodie. - We should definitely play it again. - That's obvious. (laughing) - And Eli, I look forward to doing this with you next time. - It's gonna be fun. - The LoveFactually podcast is produced and edited by Paul Eastwick and Eli Finkle, featuring music from Andrew Fraker and Sons. If you'd like to support the show, don't forget to rate and subscribe in your podcast app and please reach out to us at [email protected]. To learn more about the research we discussed in this episode, find the notes on our substack that's lovefactually.substack.com.