Lyrical, romantic, moving and real

Rating: Null/10 (15 March 2000)

"Before Sunrise" touched me very deeply. Jesse and Celine seem so real because Richard Linklater gives us the time to get to know them. And because they seem so real to us, we become more emotionally involved in the story and what happens to these two people.
The shots near the end of the film (of places Jesse and Celine were the night before) are lovely and elegiac. Have you ever driven or walked by a place where something significant once happened to you? To anyone else, that place might seem like a drab alleyway or commonplace bench, but to you it holds a special memory. These shots capture that feeling perfectly.
This entire movie plays like a beautiful memory...wonderful.
If you enjoyed "Before Sunrise", I highly recommend "The Clock", a 1945 film with Judy Garland and Robert Walker. Walker is a soldier on leave who (literally) runs into Garland at New York's Penn Station, and they only have two days to get to know each other. While different in tone from "Before Sunrise", it is definitely of the same spirit.