WhatzUp

Before Sunset
by Derek Neff
In Before Sunset, writer/director Richard Linklater revisits the same couple he brought together for one fateful night back in his 1995 movie Before Sunrise. Jesse and Celine are now nine years older, 30-something, career-oriented individuals with a more complex and somewhat cynical view of life than they had back on that night in Vienna so long ago.

The premise here is even simpler than the premise in Before Sunrise, if that’s possible. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is in Paris promoting his new novel, which is ostensibly a work of fiction but is unmistakably about the single night he spent with Celine nearly a decade earlier. Celine (Julie Delpy) shows up at one of his book-signings. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since Vienna. The two exchange hugs and pleasantries. Jesse has to be at the airport in less than an hour. The two have just enough time to walk around the streets of Paris for a little while, get some coffee and catch up on old times before Jesse’s limo shuttles him off to de Gaulle.

The early scenes here are fascinating, especially if you watch them with your memories of Before Sunrise still fresh in your mind. (This is the perfect excuse to re-watch one of the great romances in movie history.) Hawke and Delpy are still fairly young, of course, but it’s amazing what nine years can do to a face; their eyes seem more haunted, their cheeks a little more hollow with weariness, the lines on their foreheads more prominent. Jesse projects this image of himself as a successful young novelist with an air of near-desperation, while Celine apprehensively hides behind a mask of irreverence and breezy charm.

But slowly, or not so slowly. Jesse has a plane to catch, after all - the dual facade of happiness and success slips away. The dialogue here is thoughtful but highly realistic, which is to say that it is awkward at times, inane at others and pretentious at still others. It’s almost anti-movie dialogue in that respect. It doesn’t feel written or pre-planned; it’s just two intelligent people talking. (Linklater co-wrote the screenplay with Hawke and Delpy.)

Unlike Before Sunrise, which had a certain amount of temporal compression in it - that 100 minute movie portrayed an event that lasted a good 12-15 hours, after all- Linklater shoots Before Sunset as a “real-time” experience. Consequently, there is a feeling of urgency here that wasn’t there the first time. The two don’t have all night; they have just one hour.

Jesse and Celine are playing for higher stakes this time around, and they both know it. (Celine has had a string of unfulfilling, short-term relationships over the years, and Jesse is unhappily married, with a beautiful child he loves very much.) One scene near the end, taking place in a limo, is nothing short of devastating. By this point all the protective layers have been shed, all the cleverness and irony have fallen away, and the two share more of themselves here than they ever did in Before Sunrise, mostly because there’s more of themselves to share now.

It’s a wonderful, dense package, this movie. It only clocks in at about 80 minutes, but its brevity is an important key to its power. I can’t say I enjoyed it as well as Before Sunrise - it isn’t as rich in incident, and the young couple’s hopeful innocence in the first movie was priceless - but I appreciate the sequel more and more every time I think about it.