"Before Sunset" - Film Review
The follow-up to Richard Linklater’s standout Before Sunrise, Before Sunset picks up nine years after that fateful night in Vienna when Céline (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke), then strangers, decide to wander the streets together until Jesse’s flight leaves in the morning. They were two college students who met by chance on a train, spent the night together, and agreed to meet again at the Vienna train station in six months. Before Sunset provides the long-awaited answer to the question of whether one or both of them showed up at the train station. It’s a question that has plagued film lovers for nine long years.
Before Sunset’s beats are extraordinarily familiar to everyone who saw Before Sunrise. Boiled down to its most basic, the eighty-minute runtime is merely Céline and Jesse walking through Paris and sharing long conversations about themselves, the world, and that night nine years ago. This time, however, things are different. Gone are the romantic ideations and the casualness of youth. In their place, at least at the beginning, are two mature people much more grounded in reality. And yet, the more they talk, weaving themselves through the dreamy streets of Paris, the younger versions of themselves begin to shine through again. The years fall away, the familiarity returns, and the feelings resurface. Delpy and Hawke turn in nuanced performances, oscillating between the exuberance of the reunion and the frustrations of life’s responsibilities. Both characters have to struggle with the desire to put all their cards out on the table, yet keep their individual looming realities in perspective. A re-watch is highly recommended because it’s nearly impossible to notice and process all the subtle gestures that will surely go unnoticed the first time.
Warner Independent Pictures
What elevates Before Sunset over its predecessor is that Delpy and Hawke had a large hand in writing the dialogue for their characters. In an unusual twist, nine real-life years passed for the actors at the same time nine fictitious years passed for Céline and Jesse. Hawke and Delpy were able to use experiences from their own personal lives to fill in the gaps for their characters. This perspective brings an added sense of reality, and it is almost as if the audience is eavesdropping on a very real conversation.
While he is walking through Paris with Céline, Jesse keeps repeating that he has a plane to catch in an hour. The recklessness he displays in choosing to reconnect with a woman he hasn’t seen or heard from in nine years, thinking that he can say everything he needs to say to her in an hour, harkens back to the Jesse of the first film. As described by Hawke, Before Sunrise is about “what could be,” and Before Sunset is about “what should have been.” It is certainly a romantic movie, and the final moments are stress-inducing, life-affirming, and pure romance, beautifully scored by Nina Simone. Before Sunset is the kind of movie that takes every pre-conceived notion of filmmaking and throws it out the window. It is a celebration of being alive and how lovely and frightening love is.
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