A quiet, thoughtful, spellbinding film.

Rating: Null/10 (5 November 2004)

Two people meet in Paris nine years after a brief liaison in Vienna chronicled in the film Before Sunrise(1995). At that time they arranged to meet again but it now turns out they never did. They look and act nine years older - as indeed the players as well as the characters are - as they walk through Paris streets and gardens you can almost touch. They talk of their earlier meeting and the missed rendezvous, of the changes in the world since, and bit by bit of their present lives. In terms of action, catching a Bateau-Mouche on the Seine is as dramatic as things get.
You feel sure you are watching a French film, drawing you in merely by place, time, and dialogue, and you need to keep reminding yourself that it is in fact a most unusual - and impressive - American film that you are watching.
The two characters were very much involved in writing their own dialogue, and this shows vividly in the thoughtful and intelligent conversations where the American man (Ethan Hawke) and the French girl (Julie Delpy) quietly reflect their personal and cultural differences without having them spelled out in capital letters.
This was never going to be a blockbuster, but thank goodness such films can still be made. Maybe it will start a trend in sequels that appear only every nine years.