Before Sunset

Released 2004
Stars Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Directed by Richard Linklater

Nine years have passed since Jesse and Celine met in Vienna and walked all over the city, talking as if there would be no tomorrow, and then promising to meet again in six months. "Were you there in Vienna, in December?" she asks him. Nine years have passed, and they have met again in Paris. Jesse wrote a novel about their long night together, and at a book signing he looked up, and there she was. They begin to talk again, in a rush, before he must leave to catch his flight back to America.

"Before Sunset" continues the conversation that began in "Before Sunrise" (1995), but at a riskier level. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) are over 30 now, have made commitments in life, no longer feel as they did in 1995 that everything was possible. One thing they have learned, although they are slow to reveal it, is how rare it is to meet someone you feel an instinctive connection with. They walk out of the bookstore and around the corner and walk, and talk, and the director Richard Linklater films them in long, uninterrupted takes, so that the film feels like it exists in real time.

Summary by Roger Ebert

I enjoyed this movie even more than Before Sunrise, and that was probably because they were closer to my age now. The acting and dialogue in this movie are something special. There are very long shots that involve pages of dialogue while the characters are walking, and it all feels natural. In fact, this movie feels so real and immediate it doesn't really feel like a movie. Being in real time and walking freely through streets and gardens, it feels like you're tagging along with a couple of people while they have an encounter they've both dreamed about for years. Unfortunately for them, it comes 8 1/2 years too late. The characters start awkwardly as they dance around the current state of their lives without trying to express too much regret over not meeting when they were supposed to, but they also try to not express too much desire for each other. During their hour together they probe and divulge until it becomes clear their romantic night was as much a curse as it was a blessing. If only they had hooked up, their lives would have turned out much better. At least that's what they both think. Whether it would have turned out that way or not, they would have liked to have found out. --Bill Alward, February 19, 2005