Before Sunrise

Released 1995
Stars Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Directed by Richard Linklater

They Meet Cute on a train in Austria. They start talking. There is a meeting of the minds (our most erotic organs) and they like each other. They're in their early 20s. He's an American with an Eurail pass, on his way to Vienna to catch a cheap flight home. She's French, a student at the Sorbonne, on her way back to Paris. They go to the buffet car, drink some coffee, keep talking, and he has this crazy idea: Why doesn't she get off the train with him in Vienna, and they can be together until he catches his plane? This sort of scenario has happened, I imagine, millions of times. It has rarely happened in a nicer, sweeter, more gentle way than in Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise," which I could call a "Love Affair" for Generation X, except that Jesse and Celine stand outside their generation, and especially outside its boring insistence on being bored.

There is no hidden agenda in this movie. There will be no betrayals, melodrama, phony violence, or fancy choreography in sex scenes. It's mostly conversation, as they wander the city of Vienna from mid-afternoon until the following dawn. Nobody hassles them. "Before Sunrise" is so much like real life - like a documentary with an invisible camera - that I found myself remembering real conversations I had experienced with more or less the same words.

Summary by Roger Ebert

Almost everything in this movie is perfect, but for some strange reason it didn't grab me. I appreciated it, but I wasn't enthralled. I should have been, though, because the performances are outstanding. The chemistry between the two actors was so natural, that I actually kept noticing it. It made me wonder how long the shoot was for this movie, because it seemed like we were actually watching this date happen. You can tell from the beginning that Jesse (Ethan Hawke) has been recently dumped, which explains his nervous self-doubt. He's reluctant to make an advance toward Celine (Julie Delpy), and we see that in the record shop. It was the perfect moment to finally act on their sexual chemistry and to kiss Celine, but he's too unsure of himself. The acting in this scene is sublime with its awkward glances and aborted touches. Ethan Hawke's nervous and unsure portrayal can be a little annoying at times, but his performance is the key to the film. If he had played the role as a smooth character, it would have been a standard romance movie with a smooth American romancing a French girl. Instead, it's a highly original romance between two people who have a chance meeting. How many times have you seen someone in public and wondered about the possibilities? --Bill Alward, March 12, 2002