A romantic masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2015)

Before Sunrise is for sure one of the most important romances in the history of film. The Richard Linklater movie not only surpasses the expectation of its cheesy poster, the cliché tag line or the absurd simplicity of its premise ("A young man and woman meet on a train in Europe, and wind up spending one evening together in Vienna", on IMDb), but actually does something remarkable: makes the audience believe in those people. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy star, and their performances make Jesse and Celine two of the most fleshed-out, three dimensional characters I've ever seen on film. Nowadays, we are used to the Nicholas Sparks formula, in which characters are defined only by one or two particular traits in their personality, and the way they act and speak and show their feelings is clearly dictated by the story. In Before Sunrise, the characters are the story and for that, they dictate the shortcomings of it, which makes for a much more pleasant watching experience, and one that feels a lot more genuine. Even the most "movie moments", like when the couple first meet on the train and Jesse asks Celine if she wants to join him on a tour across the Austrian city, are handled with a superb sincerity and spontaneity thanks to Linklater's minimal character-driven direction, Hawke' and Delpy's excellent performances and their chemistry with one another, which honestly made me think they were married in real life, and, of course, the magnificent screenplay by Kim Krizan and Linklater himself, that basically turns this run-of- the-mill romance into one masterpiece, taking its simple premise and turning it on its head, and just making something beautiful, something full of heart and, most of all, something unique.