Great movie except for the ending

Rating: 8/10 (9 July 2004)

OK, this is fair warning. Before Sunset is all talking. I would describe it as a romantic My Dinner with Andre or maybe an intellectual chick flick. The movie is one extended conversation between the two lead characters, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy). They walk through the streets of Paris, they have coffee at a local café, they walk some more, they take a boat ride on the Seine, they are driven to her apartment, she invites him in, they talk a while in the apartment, movie over. That's it. If this doesn't sound appealing to you, forget it. You won't like the movie. People who don't like Julie Delpy or her character won't like the movie either because she has about two-thirds of the lines. Personally, I was fascinated by the conversation, and I thought Celine was mesmerizing. I did have one huge problem with Before Sunset. It ended too abruptly, before the end of the conversation. I wanted to see how things turned out, but the movie just leaves you hanging. At the screening I went to, there was a collective gasp from the audience at the end because we weren't expecting it to be over. My bottom line - great movie except for the ending (8 out of 10).