Review of Before Sunset (2004) by Kenneth L — 02 May 2011

This is maybe even a better movie than the original Before Sunrise, and feels like it fulfills the earlier film. It's less gushingly romantic, wiser and older and more complex, but with much of the same appeal as the first.

The story picks up where the first film left off - the same two characters, not having seen each other since the events of the first film nine years earlier, meet again, and continue their conversation through the streets of Paris. In an impressive achievement, the film plays out in real time - the hour and twenty minutes of movie we see represents an hour and twenty minutes of the characters' lives. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but that actually must have been pretty tricky to pull off in terms of shooting.

Again, the characters just talk throughout the entire movie. The film is not simply a repeat of the first, however, since the intervening years have brought significant changes to the characters' lives and outlooks, if not their essential personalities. They're older and wiser now, and sadder, feeling like they have settled in their lives and may have missed out on a real opportunity with each other. You can see how life has started to get to them, tire them out, left them less optimistic. This film's approach to love is more philosophical than that of the first one, but it still manages to work on your emotions as well as the first did.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who apparently also wrote this time around, slip right back into their characters very naturally. Both of their performances are really great; I especially liked the way some unexpected emotions suddenly bubbled to the surface for Delpy. They're both just so natural and convincing.

Richard Linklater's direction, once again, is unobtrusive, and simply lets us observe the characters interact in long unbroken takes. There are some nice little visual and verbal echoes between the two films which may or may not have been intentional, but which you could probably only pick up if you watched them both close together. Before Sunset probably would not work nearly as well if you had not seen Before Sunrise; and yet, Before Sunrise (deliberately) feels incomplete, and this film completes what the first one started. Watch them both in succession, and you'll likely appreciate both of them more.