Much better than I expected.

Rating: Null/10 (11 July 2004)

Let me start this commentary off by saying, I am NOT an Ethan Hawke fan; he's always struck me as someone who thinks he's more interesting than he actually is. And Julie Deply's always struck me as French Lite, especially in comparison to Juliette Binoche and Audrey Tautou (don't use "Amelie" as your sole reference to her talent and depth; check out "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not", she's spooky). But a friend finally convinced me to watch "Before Sunrise" by emphasizing how much it is like "My Dinner With Andre" (a movie I very much enjoyed). Well...he conned me. This film doesn't have anywhere near the beauty of language and depth of ideas as "...Andre", but it DOES have a pair of perfectly matched performances by actors who manage to build an uncertain situation into a series of what I felt to be real moments between the two of them.
Wandering with them through a city that pretty much sleeps from ten till nine, I actually got to care about Jesse and Celine. Ethan Hawke made his character an endearing boy of a man who knows he's lost but cannot quite accept the idea that he has any other options. And Julie Delpy kept her character's sense of anger and ennui just enough below the surface to where it wasn't threatening but still seemed to be more in control of her than she wanted to admit. And scenes I feared would become dumb movie moments shifted into simple occurrences that kept the story going (the "poetry" scene is a perfect example of that; had the poem not been so Second Year College Poetry, it would have been too cutesy, but mingled with Jesse's near screw-up of the glow it brought Celine, the bit some bite).
Overall, this movie was much better than I expected. It went on about 10 minutes too long...but that's a minor complaint. The true test is did it make me want to see "Before Sunset"? I do...even though I don't. And I will...I just wonder how I'll feel once I see how they've changed.