Fantastic...

Rating: 10/10 (16 April 2005)

I was way too young to see Before Sunrise when it was originally released in 1995, but I rented it about a year ago and was blown away by it, bought it and proceeded to get my friends obsessed with it. So when I heard that Richard Linklater was making a follow-up to it, I was extremely excited and anxious (and I didn't even have to wait for 10 years between movies!). As much as I liked Before Sunrise, I think I like Before Sunset even more...the characters are so real-life it's almost scary and Delpy, Hawke and Linklater deserved their Oscar nomination for best screenplay, the dialog was so natural and realistic it didn't even seem scripted (and that's a huge compliment). The acting was phenomenal, for a film, shot in real time, involving only 2 characters walking through Paris talking about nothing and everything it held my attention and I think that was due in large part to Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, who I forgot were acting and almost believed were really their characters. This movie isn't flashy or loud or anything like that, it doesn't try to convey some huge philosophical message, it's just two people who met each other once and are now trying to make up for all the things in their lives they couldn't do with each other...so normal and sad and hopeful. If you enjoy dialog driven, character based films this movie comes highly recommended...definitely 10 out of 10.