Nine years ago, Richard Linklater, after leaping on to the scene with the instant indie classics like Slacker and Dazed and Confused, made a little film called Before Sunrise. Two characters, Jessie and Celine, an American boy and a French girl played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, spent one night wandering around Vienna. They talked and talked. They flirted and kissed. They talked and talked some more. They made a pact to meet again in six months and then said good-bye to each other.

Since then Linklater has continued to make movies - independent, fascinating experiments like Waking Life and commercial charmers like School of Rock. He is a marvelously versatile talent. And now with Before Sunset, he proves that he is still a very romantic soul. He didn’t need to make this movie.

Hawke and Delpy also expose their romantic selves by giving so much to this sequel. Both are credited, along with Linklater, with screenwriting credits. The screenplay is smart and chatty. Both actors give genuine, lived-in performances, made easier perhaps because they helped shape their characters, but still challenging because Before Sunset is just two people trying to discover if there is still a spark between them. It is full of emotional shading.

As Before Sunset begins, Jesse is in Shakespeare and Company in Paris. He’s making the last appearance of the European leg of his book tour. He has written a novel, a thinly veiled account of the night he and Celine spent together. A journalist asks him, is the story autobiographical, is it true? “To me, that’s not important,” is his answer. “So that’s a yes,” is her correct interpretation of his remark.

As he talks, the camera goes back and forth in time, dancing into the past for brief clips from Before Sunrise and coming back to the present. With smooth style, one of these cuts lands us on Delpy’s face, and it takes a moment to realize that this is Celine today. She has slipped in to the bookstore to say hello.

Jesse is surprised and delighted to see her, and the two wander off to have a coffee and catch up before Jesse catches an early evening plane back to the States. And the talking starts, just about where it left off in Before Sunrise.

They start off politely, with typical inquiries. They talk about whether or not they showed for the six-month reunion in Vienna. It didn’t take place, but the circumstances are interesting. They talk about what they’ve been doing. Jesse has written a modest best-seller. He’s married and has a son. Celine works for environmental causes and has lived in many very poor places, hoping to improve living conditions.

They talk about their memories of the night they spent together. Celine recognizes herself in Jesse’s book and wants to know if that is how he really saw her at that time. “Memory is wonderful if you don’t have to deal with the past,” Celine says at one point. So, they are as they were, in many ways. They are funny and wonderfully articulate, in a way that people rarely are except in movies. Their conversation sometimes turns pretentious or indulgent or silly. They get very serious, and then they back off. This happens in waves.

They do a lot of this talking as they wander around Paris, bathed in amazing golden light, slipping in and out of gardens, winding streets and even taking a boat ride on the Seine. On the river, the visually romantic high point of the movie, Jesse seems to be truly in pain asking why they didn’t exchange numbers and addresses so many years ago. “Because we were young and stupid?” is the answer they agree on.

And, in addition to the greater sophistication of the structure and technical execution of the film, what makes Before Sunset more appealing than Before Sunrise is that the characters aren’t quite so young and stupid. They still aren’t made to be completely likable. They have flaws and an edge. They may not even be perfect for each other, but in their fondness for good and abundant conversation, they are very well matched.

Their very clever and funny conversations makes us root for them. In an utterly different style than what is typically viewed as suspenseful, the tension between these two is tantalizingly compelling.

These two have chemistry, as well as great dialogue. Hawke is very good, but perhaps because I am a woman, perhaps because I feel like I’ve seen the sentiments expressed by his character often before, it is Delpy that I found truly wonderful to watch, and not just because she is a glowing, natural beauty.

These days the Academy gives its best actress statue to women wearing noses, or making themselves unrecognizable in some other way, or for playing some miserable survivor. How I hope that they do not overlook this contemporary, smart, lovely and very recognizable character. She’s emotional, sometimes neurotic, very able to change moods and recover. Celine says things that many women think, but few are given the opportunity to express on screen.

This performance is on a par with Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, even down to the musical performance. “A Waltz for a Night,” the song Delpy performs very close to the end of the movie, that Celine wrote for Jesse (Men write novels. Women write songs?) is written by Delpy. So is “An Ocean Apart” which plays, a little less successfully, over the opening credit s. And her imitation of Nina Simone is very seductive and funny.

Before Sunset is rated R for very spicy language about sex, but it is also a very old-fashioned romance. As in the days of the old Hayes Code, these characters don’t take off their clothes. They keep one foot on the floor. But because of this restraint, Before Sunset is the sexiest movie I’ve seen in a long time.

If you need flesh to titillate, Before Sunset will frustrate. I adored the ending. I love imagining what happens next. I hope the players get together again, and give us another glimpse of Jesse and Celine.