Review
Before Sunrise
- Director
- Richard Linklater
- Year
- 1995
- Rating
- Reviewed by
- José Ruiloba a.k.a. Morris
- Review date
- Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) meet and have a good time on a train on their way to Vienna. He’s an American who’s just traveling for nothing, or so he says, and she’s a French woman going back home after visiting her grandmother. When it’s time for Jesse to leave the train he just can’t leave things at that, and convinces Celine to spend the rest of the evening with him before he takes a flight in the morning. Together they get to know the city while getting to know each other. And it is slowly, yet beautifully, that love gets in the way.
Hollywood produces countless romantic comedies that rehash the same formula despite being set in a different environment. That’s why Before Sunrise comes as such a breath of fresh air. It has none, and I do mean none, of the usual plot devices presented in your typical romantic movie. In a way, it is an extremely daring movie, going for an approach that may not have worked at all, but that ended up as pure magic.
That approach, devised by writer/director Richard Linklater, is all about talking. Talk, talk, talk and more talk. Jesse and Celine get to talk about just everything. Sometimes they embark on difficult, controversial, or deep conversations. And sometimes they just chitchat about whatever comes to their minds. We’re shown all sides, and it is so profoundly human and real that you just can’t help falling in love with both of them as well.
The movie is full of special moments. It also has specific instances where certain nuances or glances say more about the characters than anything that comes out of their mouth. There’s a point where Jesse has to control himself from removing some blocking hair from Celine’s face. It is a wonderful, quiet and honest moment... and the movie is full of them!
Another wonderful scene has the two of them simulating a phone conversation with their friends back home. Amazing!
There’s a montage at the end of the movie that strikes just about the right note. A day has passed, the city returns to its daily routines. But somehow, somewhere, something memorable just happened. And we witnessed it. And we felt it. And we can’t feel but utterly in love with love itself.
For a movie like this to work, the actors have to be good at seeming natural, they’ve got to have chemistry, and they’ve got to be good improvisers. Hawke and Delpy are all of that and more. We identify with them. We know they are very different people, yet they never cease to be fascinating, as individual characters and as part of a relationship. The actors simply excel, and at times it even feels as if we were intruding. It’s that effective.
Great work by everyone involved. A classic indeed!
“I like to feel his eyes on me when I look away.”
CriticSociety en Twitter | CriticSociety en Facebook
Share on Facebook | Share on Twitter
Other reviews of Before Sunrise (1995): Groucho
Comments
New comments are temporarily disabled
Review
Before Sunrise
- Director
- Richard Linklater
- Year
- 1995
- Rating
- Reviewed by
- Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho
- Review date
- Wednesday, November 24, 2004
The film puts American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and French Celine (Julie Delpy) on an European train on its way to Vienna. Chance dictates that they meet each other, and befriend each other, before the train reaches its nearest stop. Despite several minutes of nice conversation, the friendship is over much too quickly, as they get to Vienna and Jesse has to get off and spend the night there before he flies away from Europe. Jesse and Celine say good-bye, and the story ends as nothing more than a chance encounter.
Or does it? Jesse reappears, much to Celine’s surprise, and proposes her to spend the night with him, wandering around Vienna, as that’s what he was planning to do anyway (all by himself). It’s insane maybe, but she eventually agrees, and off they go. The morning after, they’re crazy about each other, after a night talking, wandering, and falling in love.
What’s so irresistible about Before Sunrise? First of all, I’d say you can’t get a film about two people, and two people only, to be more entertaining than this without more external factors. This isn’t It Happened One Night (1934) or Roman Holiday (1953), where the characters have different motivations than falling in love and hide things from each other; this is simple romance, an adventure that can be silly or unforgettable, but has nothing extraordinary going on, other than two strangers spending an amazing night with each other.
The way the script (by Linklater and Kim Krizan) handles this is admirable, as Jesse and Celine keep chatting about anything and everything, from trivial stuff to philosophical themes (and quite a bit about relationships and love), but they never make it boring, for each other or for us. And yet, every stage of their relationship is believable, from the undeniable attraction they feel to each other, to the clumsiness of their first signs of affection, to the tragedy of seeing the night get to an end…
The second aspect that makes the film work is the actors. Both Hawke and Delpy are beyond words in their roles, and sometimes it’s even hard to believe that they’re actually acting. I’m not sure if the roles were written for them, but they fit them to a tee, even in some physical aspects made reference to at times. I believed the fantasy completely and I thank the actors for making it so perfect.
Filmed in wonderful locations throughout Vienna (including a nostalgic remembrance of The Third Man (1949)), this film can be criticized for being talky, and at times rather tiresome; but it’s certainly not in the least boring, and something’s for sure: It’s very very romantic.
Gon C Curiel en Twitter | CriticSociety en Twitter | CriticSociety en Facebook
Share on Facebook | Share on Twitter
Other reviews of Before Sunrise (1995): Morris
Comments
New comments are temporarily disabled
