Before Sunrise - A

Quick Hit: A beautiful dialogue-driven love story that has an ending that is as wonderful as it is frustrating.

I’ll start by prefacing this: I watched the entire Richard Linklater trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight) in the span of just over 36 hours. Therefore, it’s going to be hard for me to separate the movies, as they are intrinsically linked together, not just in subject or characters, but in the way they are shot, and what they are at the core: an amazing love story. However, I’ll do my best, because in reality, these movies were released nine years apart (Richard 

Linklater does love to make us wait for his sequels or even films (Hello, Boyhood).

Let’s start with the beginning shall we? There’s the meeting on a train. Celine is sitting next to a noisy couple that is fighting, and moves backwards to a different seat. There, she meets Jesse (though names aren’t really important here – they aren’t even exchanged until 20 minutes in). They strike up a conversation; he’s on the way to Vienna, she on the way back home to France. When they arrive at his stop, he asks if she would like to come with him.  This is despite the fact that he only has about one day in Vienna before his flight leaves, and he has no money for a hotel. His plan is just to walk around and see the city. Will she still join? She does, and the movie continues their conversation.

The wonderful awkwardness of walking around with someone you barely know.

A movie like this has to have a masterful director behind it, and Linklater shows why he is one of the best at what he does: dialogue-based films with well-developed characters. I honestly don’t think many people could have made this film and not made it boring. The movie is entirely filled with walking and talking. There is no incredible action; the only characters that are 

really in the film are Celine (played by Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke). There is even very little sexuality, past some dialogue and some that is implied off-camera. Instead, the camera lingers with long slow takes as the couples walk and talk through Vienna. It gives them a chance to breathe, be themselves, and to be real characters. Too few movies are about allowing people to be themselves, but here, it shows that our love-struck couple is normal.

Ethan Hawke is fantastic as Jesse, playing him with a perfect amount of pretentiousness, while also showing the heart and soul behind a man that is filled with ideas but no real idea on what to do with them. Delpy is the perfect blend of sexy and smart, and is sensual without trying to be. There acting doesn’t just carry the film, it IS the film. They have chemistry from their first moments on screen together, and you care about both characters by the end of the film.  As they talk, you (as an audience member) find yourself recalling conversations in your own life that you have had with people in the past, as you mused about life: where it was going, what it meant, and where you came from. One of my favorite lines of dialogue (maybe in any movie I've watched) is when Jesse is talking during their night in the park. It's so good that I won't spoil it.

I’m not really sure if this is a spoiler or not, so I’m just putting it in h ere (Better safe than sorry when it comes to spoilers).
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The scene in the listening booth is one of my favorites. How perfect to illustrate that attraction.

In the film’s final moments, the couple embraces on the platform and kisses. After going through several start-stops about whether they would continue to talk after the movie was over, they decide to meet back at the platform in six months. Then the movie ends. Knowing that there was a trilogy of films, obviously I knew they met once more, but I can’t imagine sitting in a theatre in 1995 and having to wait to find out. That would have been terrible. But, that’s not to say I didn’t like the ending. We are spoiled as an audience, because so often we are spoon-fed throughout movies, and the endings are almost practically served to us on golden platters. I like that Linklater and his fellow writers allow the audience to come to their own conclusions. Is this just a naïve couple with a dream, or is this a couple that’s meant to be?

For its daring, its beautiful tracking, its wonderful dialogue, this couldn’t be anything but an “A” for me.

For more on this movie, check out IMDB.