Before Sunset

22 April 2019

Before Sunset 2004

• Director: Richard Linklater
• Based on the novel: no
• Cast: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Ethan Hawke – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Cymbeline, Before Sunrise, Tape, Hamlet, Snow Falling on Cedars, Gattaca, Reality Bites, Waterland, Dead Poets Society
• Julie Delpy – Two Days in New York, Two Days in Paris, Before Sunrise Broken Flowers, The Red Film, The White Film
• Why? Second of the trilogy
• Seen: Once before. Now 18 April 2019      

       It was supposed to be six months but now nine years have passed since the two lovers in Before Sunrise, Jesse (Hawk) and Celine (Delpy), meet again in the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. He has written a book about their previous meeting and is now famous.

       They walk and talk, talk and walk. Just like last time.

       She’s working for an environmental organisation and they talk politics. He’s optimistic, she’s pessimistic. She’s a bit radical, he’s a vaguely ignorant American.

       They walk and talk, they talk and walk. I’m bored.

       Oh look, there’s the Notre Dame. Burnt now, just last week. Well, not all of it. At first it felt like a tragedy but it’s just a church, you know. Beautiful and all, but just think of all the great human needs the restoration money could be used for instead of on a medieval symbol of dictatorial power.

       But I digress. Now they’re talking and riding on a Seine boat. They start baring their souls. Then there’s a long walk up the winding staircase to her flat with close-ups of their faces, and the cat. Don’t forget the cat. Quite artistic.

       Kind of a soapy ending though.

3 (almost)* of 5