Before Sunset Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)July 2nd, 2004
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Most sequels - aside from offerings like Harry Potter and Spider-Man - don't need to be made. Films like Shrek 2 and The Chronicles of Riddick are more concerned with making money than they are making art. Yet, in the middle of the summer, where films of each ilk are offered on a near-weekly basis, we get Richard Linklater's Before Sunset - a non-episodic follow-up to his 1995 (Before Sunrise) film that, in its entire life, pulled in what Spidey 2 made in its first couple of hours. In other words, it's a rare example of a sequel that is labor of love - not one that worships at the altar of the Almighty Dollar.
Before Sunrise was a near real-time story of two people - Jesse, a vacationing American (Ethan Hawke), and Celine, a Parisian on her way home from Budapest (Julie Delpy) - learning about each other as they spent half of a day walking and talking around the luxurious sites of Vienna during one June day in 1994. The strangers, both in their early 20s, fell in love and, before boarding trains to their respective destinations the following morning, agreed to meet in Vienna six months later, but the film ends without us knowing if the two ever saw each other again after locking lips at the rail station.
Sunset takes place nine years later, where Jesse is on the last stop of a 10-city European tour to support the release of his first novel...which just so happens to be about a certain one-day encounter he had with a French girl nine years ago. He spies Celine in the crowd and the two take off through Paris in the 60 minutes Jesse has before he has to catch a plane back home. Everything takes place in real time.
Like Sunrise, Sunset is all about the talking (to some, both films are truly Seinfeldian in that they're about nothing). Jesse and Celine, now both in their early 30s, touch on spirituality, sex, politics and their post-Vienna relationships, eventually working their way toward that three-ton elephant that neither of them particularly want to acknowledge. What happened in December 1994? Why did Jesse write the book? What affect did it have on Celine? Could these two actually have a chance at rekindling their sparky romance after not seeing each other for nearly a decade?
There's nothing revolutionary about Sunset (other than it not being a cash-cow sequel), and if you loved or hated Sunrise, you're probably going to feel exactly the same way about this film. Fans of "talkie" pictures like My Dinner with Andre, or Linklater's animated gem Waking Life (which featured a brief Jesse-Celine scene that won't make much sense after you see Sunset), will dig the free-flowing dialogue, credited to Linklater (The School of Rock) and both of his leads. The talking seems incredibly natural and, aside from a stumble or two from Delpy, rarely comes off as forced as each actor wears their role like a familiar, comfortable sweater. The end, though many will likely complain about it, is perfect, as is the slow, mostly silent (as silent as these two chatterboxes can get) walk Jesse and Celine take up the rickety stairs to her apartment, knowing - but not wanting to admit - what's going to happen once they get up there. It's one of the finer cinematic moments I've seen this year, and it made me wish they could both schedule appointments with Lacuna, Inc.
Here's something to ponder while you're watching Sunset that might make it more enjoyable: What if the movies are autobiographical? Could Linklater have had an encounter with a woman before he became a successful director, made a pact to meet her in six months, and then not have seen her again until he was doing a European press junket for one of his films? Could Jesse's book (remember, he's a Texan, just like Linklater, who looks eerily like Hawke) be the written equivalent of Sunrise? Could Sunset be what happened when Linklater met this girl nine years later? Or could it be what he wished would have happened if they had met nine years later? Hey, maybe it's me that needs that Lacuna appointment.
1:20 - R for R for language and sexual references
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