Review of Before Sunset (2004) by Adnan A — 08 May 2011

Just as perfect as Before Sunrise. When Before Sunset was first announced the die hard fans were pissed off that Linklater was doing a sequel to Before Sunrise. But here, Linklater proves that you can explain the story more and stay ambiguous at the same time.

I know I loved the ending of Before Sunrise because it lets the audience take what it wants. They apply their personality to the film and that's what will happen to Celine and Jesse. The majority of Before Sunset discusses what it has been like for the two characters since the previous film and how that night affected their lives.

One of the best quotes of the film comes from Jesse when he says young people can move on from a deep connection with another person because they think it will happen again later in life. When you get older you realize you can be nice to other people and have a good time, but you only share a connection with a few people.

You just need to take that connection and hold onto it no matter what. No one could have played the roles of Celine and Jesse better than Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. They are so convincing. I loved following them around and listening to every single thing they had to say.

I cared about their lives, I wanted to know more. I felt like the observer walking around with them waiting for little pieces of information to be shared. I was inside the film itself, not just a person staring at the TV.

I was with Jesse as he toured Paris with a long lost love. Linklater catches beautiful scenery of Paris as he follows the characters, but never loses focus on them. We are always involved with the characters rather than the city.

Unlike Before Sunrise, this film plays out at complete real time. We start out with Jesse discussing his new book in a small Parisian book store, then he sees Celine and everything jumps off from there.

We see right away that Jesse is married because he plays with his wedding ring, but they don't discuss it for quite some time. She knows he is married so at first it is just old friends catching up.

But the audience knows that something is going to happen between the two. There is no way these two can have such a passionate night together that Jesse writes a book about and nothing can spark between the two again.

You would think that it's dumb to listen to two people reminisce about a night that we saw in a previous film, but it captured me. There wasn't a scene like the poet or the palm reader in Before Sunrise, but not a single moment of boredom occurs.

I could go on and on about how Linklater achieves what seems to be impossible, but I will just end this saying that Before Sunset is a beautiful piece of art.