MOVIE REVIEW: Before Sunrise/Sunset

MOVIE REVIEW: "Before Sunrise" (1995) and "Before Sunset (2004), highly recommended



This pair of movies came to me highly recommended within the subject of romantic comedies.  There are several examples of movies that supercede the genre, through which the recommendation would extend past the rom-com audience.  These movies do not reach those heights, but they never set out to either.  These are strictly for romantics at hearts.



"Before Sunrise" was very good...

The first entry was from 1995, with two strangers traveling on the Eurorail train to Vienna.  After a brief, mildly charming encounter, Ethan Hawke's character (Jesse) comes up with an idea to get Julie Delpy's character (Celine, I think) to get off the train with him and bum around town until he has to fly back home.  Selfish proposition, no doubt, but Hawke's charm carried the weak explanation that she somehow could use their time together to reinforce the fact that no relationship is all that different than any other relationship.  Believe it or not, the explanation worked: not just for Celine, since her character was scriped to do whatever was needed, but also for the scene itself since the explanation set the entire tone of the movie.  Credit Hawke's boyish charm and Delpy's ability to convey a hidden intrigue for the link since the writing gave them no freebies.



In fact, the script was largely improv as both Hawke and Delpy are given writing credits.  And rightly so since there are only a few pauses in the script and even less additional parties.  For the most part, the film is carried by these two romantic, pseudo-intellectuals bonding over a walk through Vienna.  The budding romance takes a lame turn when Celine suggests they should agree to never meet again.  Without exchanging names or numbers, they continue their wonderously romantic encounter until the time comes to say goodbye.  Unable to call it "the end," they agree to meet each other in six months in the same town again.  No names exchanged, no phone numbers.  The viewers are left to decide for themselves what happend in six months.

Until nine years later, when directly Richard Linklater provided the movie's fans with an answer.

... but "Before Sunset" was incredible!

We pick up nine years after the end of the first film, and Jesse (Hawke) is now a successful author for having penned a romantic novel about this implausible romance with Celine.  Instead of catching a morning flight home, Jesse is now catching an evening flight home.  But he has at least 20 minutes with Celine, who surprises him at his Paris stop on his worldwide book tour.  Perhaps it was the memory of meeting Hawke on his book tour on Halloween 1996, but the premise instantly hooked me on this second encounter.

The film sets out to answer every lingering question any fan of the first film, and despite the hefty endeavor, the film succeeds and exceeds its goal.  While Jesse and Celine were mildly shallow in the first film, the two characters have now evolved (or aged, if they existed in real life).  We learn about their meeting six months after the first film ended, and why the two never spoke in the interim.  We find out how their respective lives are now, and then we learn how they feel about their current lives.

It is not often for a sequel to eclipse the original, and it is especially unlikely when those films are nine years apart, but I find it extremely hard to believe anyone could be disappointed in "Before Sunset" as a follow-up.  Personally, I enjoyed the second installment far more.  Of course, it is worth repeating that both of these films are strongly recommended to romantics (for the rest of the movie-going audience, they may not enjoy the endless conversation between two characters whose screentime encompasses 95% of the run time).