This movie is intelligent, witty, gorgeous, uncomfortable, real and yet fantastic all at the same time.

Rating: Null/10 (27 January 2000)

"Before Sunrise" is not one of my favorite movies because of the beautiful cast,the hopelessly romantic theme, or even the stunning scenery. It goes deeper than that and resonates with me in ways when I least expect it. This movie is intelligent, witty, gorgeous, uncomfortable, real and yet fantastic all at the same time. Some people may get bored with all the dialogue, but to me that is what the greatest movies are about. It's about truth and honesty, people sharing and experiencing together. The conversations between Jesse and Celine are not contrived, and on the contrary are some of the most sincere and refreshing I've ever heard. One of the most poignant scenes is in the record store, where they share the listening booth to hear a record she loves. It is in the beginning of their relationship and Linklater does nothing to disguise the discomfort and awkwardness they both feel. She looks away but enjoys him staring at her, while Jesse's desire just to touch her is almost too much to resist. But he does, as anyone would have done if they were him. That's what makes this movie so powerful. Not that the story is too good to be true but that it's so easy to relate to and yet it makes you feel as if you are experiencing it with them. Linklater pays very close attention to the details, and in doing so he creates a wonderfully layered and vital backdrop. Vienna is not so much gorgeous as it is rich in character. But yet, using old Europe as a backdrop also allows the film to appear timeless and not easy to date. Its characters take on lives of their own, creating substories that you know continue long after the camera has moved on. Everyone from the actors in the play to the poet on the bank to the foreigners in the cafe all give a sense of time and place, that even though Celine and Jesse are living in a moment of stopped time, things are alive and happening around them. Although it almost seems as if it is also happening for them, as their environment is as important as their adventure together. I have seen this movie countless times, and every time I see it I discover something new. I am drawn to these two characters and the vulnerability their share with each other. The stories they tell may seem inconsequential, but they are no more inconsequential to the stories we tell each other, stories that make up a person's life, each explaining in a tiny way why a person is who he or she is. They are of utmost importance, and yet it is these very things that can get brushed aside, seemingly irrelevant. Linklater is extraordinary at capturing this in such a way that this film makes me feel reminiscent of something I'm not sure of. I can be sitting in a dark wooded bar, and the faintest sound of a conversation in a foreign accent can transport me to a scene in this movie, as if I've lived it myself. In a movie that could easily be filled with cliches and uninspired conversation, Linklater has instead created a truly beautiful, intelligent, passionate, and honest love story.