REVIEW: Before Sunset

Before Sunset is the follow up film to Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise.  It follows the characters of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) nine years after their chance meeting on a train near Vienna.  Things have changed since then.  Time has come and gone, and they are different, more mature than they were their first time meeting.

This encounter happens in Paris, where Jesse is on a book signing tour of his best selling novel that was based off of his experience with Celine in Vienna.  Celine shows up at the signing and the two have just over an hour to kill before Jesse needs to be at the airport for his flight home.

Linklater delivers the film in real time, following every movement made by the two of them in their limited time together.  There are great shots of them walking the streets of Paris.  Not only have the characters matured, but Linklater has as well.  There is an abundance of long takes as the two walk and talk, a departure from the more edited and condensed feel of Before Sunrise.

Just like its predecessor, the movement and the dialogue between the two leads is fluid and realistic.  They talk at first like people who have not seen each other in years (which is good, because that's the case here), and from there it transitions to the types of open conversations about life that they had in the first film.  The intensity of the conversations grows to the point of both finally revealing to each other just how much their encounter has shaped their lives.

The dialogue, which was written by Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke, is the star of the show.  I literally felt as though I was listening in on the conversations of real people who are rediscovering each other as well as who they are themselves.  It was a near spiritual experience for me, as I fell back in love with Jesse and Celine, both very much transformed over the years, and yet still very much the same.

Why is it that we root for people in good movies?  Is it because we connect with them?  Is it because we are sheep and follow the leads and hope the best for them?  Or is it because they are living out something that we never will, resigned to our comfy chairs to witness from afar?  I believe that it can be a combination of all of those things, and, whatever the reason, I found myself yearning through the entire movie for the two of them to rekindle the affection that they once had.

This is difficult to do, however.  Jesse is married and has a child.  Celine is in a relationship as well.  They know from the beginning that this encounter is finite, just like their previous one, but they do everything that they can to make it last just one minute longer, and I am a sappy little man longing for the same thing.

In many ways, I think I like this more than the original.  It has a different charm, as it is two people who can only look to the past and contemplate over what could have been.  It wrestles with love and relationships.  It takes on happiness and contentment.  It is a quite different film, and yet, because of the dedicated acting from Hawke and Delpy, it is very much the same.

I can't help but say that Jesse and Celine are now my favourite romantic couple in cinematic history.  Sorry Clarke Gable and Claudette Colbert, you have been dethroned.  I am not suggesting that Before Sunset is a better movie than It Happened One Night, just that there for me a new king and queen of the romance genre, filmed gracefully in a movie that I will remember for years to come.

Rating - 4 out of 4 stars