Haunting, Entrancing, every bit as wonderful as its already cult status indicates

Rating: 8/10 (18 September 2005)

What can I say about Before Sunset? Haunting, Entrancing, every bit as wonderful as its already cult status (only one year old now) indicates. Ethan Hawke, gaunt, hunched and withered, and Julie Delpy, wiser and better, accidentally (or did fate set it up?) meet up a decade after their previous single day together to spend another day reliving it, and catching up with a decade that they eventually realize was all about that one day. What a love story this is! No love-making, but intelligent conversation that is orgasmic, covering the environment, Buddhism, the modern self, psychotherapy, relationships, America and Americans, sex and gender, God  pretty much everything that young people care about in ones and share about in twos. This is an even better film than the first one, sharper and tighter, and benefiting from the ground laid down by it, so that we now care so much more deeply for this couple that were essentially strangers to us the first time around. America meets Europe again here, as the couple walk around talking over Parisian backdrops that are not at all hard to look at. This is a must see, but only after you've seen Before Sunrise. I loved these two films with only a day in between viewing them. What would it have been to have seen Before Sunrise when it first came out and to then see Before Sunset a decade later? The heart aches at the thought.