Freddie loved the film Before Midnight, which made him “feel better about romantic love and life-long partnership”:
Perpetually, magazines and publishers release arguments that love is dead, or was always a lie, or that long-term relationships are contrary to human nature, or whatever. I have come to think that these arguments are exactly as immature and juvenile as the fairy-tale vision of love where two people meet and immediately fall in love and live happily ever after. I have had a life filled with both happiness and tragedy and there is no question in my mind that the portrayal of human life or human relationships as some hopelessly bleak and maudlin journey reveals a teenaged sensibility, a grasping and fussy pessimism that speaks of a refusal to confront life as petty indignities and great victories and terrible tragedies and little moments of grace all stacked on top of each other in nothing resembling a narrative or a plan.
Love is hard but it’s probably worth it and anyway, what else?
We have this idea that either you have a relationship with The One or you’re settling, and that the romantic ideal is to pursue the former and not the latter. But as I get older I more and more think that the real beauty comes precisely from the endless negotiation between two flawed people who aren’t perfect for each other or for anyone else but who are willing to work to find a way to live together in order to enjoy the good each has to offer. It’s not “romantic life vs. settling.” It’s getting to good enough with another person out of the conviction that there is nothing else and nothing better. And sometimes it doesn’t work. I believe in Celine and Jesse together, and I love this movie for showing two people who both can’t get along and are meant for each other.
Previous Dish on Linklater’s newest film here and here, which includes the trailer and the famous train scene referenced in the above video.
The Dish 