A stroll well worth your time.

Rating: 8/10 (11 July 2013)

It's a story that sounds great on paper, I thought, when I first read about "Before Sunrise", the prequel to "Before Sunset". It was a simple romance of a boy who meets a girl on a train and both of them take a walk around Vienna. What unfolded in "Before Sunrise" made me bite down my initial cynical view of it and extol its greatness. "Before Sunset", on the other hand, is a story of a boy who meets a girl again. I always wanted to find out what happened to the characters of Jesse and Celine after the abstruse ending in the first part. Understandably, "Before Sunset" was like a breath of fresh air and, like the characters it involves, it was like catching up with old friends.
Nine years after they parted in Vienna, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) meet again, this time in Paris, when Jesse, who is a bestselling author, is doing a book- tour. Jesse, who had based his book on the night they spent strolling around Vienna, tells her that he wrote it only so that he can meet her again. Celine walks in when he is doing an interview in a bookstore and both of them, initially awkward, decide to take a walk around Paris.
In sequels, I always find an eagerness in directors which is quite discernible when it comes to handling a significant moment, the eagerness to express the importance of that particular moment and make the audience take notice of it. In case of "Before Sunset", the most crucial moment presents itself in the meeting between Jesse and Celine. Thankfully, director Richard Linklater handles it wonderfully well, melding the awkwardness, excitement and nervousness and polishing it off with a nice touch of brevity. Though we expect the characters to go straight into discussing their lives and loves, it's fascinating and equally frustrating to watch the gaucheness between the two. Linklater prefers pragmatism over drama and it's such a comfort because the experience is much more homely that way. Once again, we find a bit of ourselves in the discussions between Jesse and Celine, the conversations becoming more personal, bleak and melancholic. While romance guided the first part, it's missing here as the characters we meet this time again have settled themselves in their lives and their thoughts have matured with them. Though the discussions brush on a lot of topics, I found the one in the café particularly invigorating. The magic lies in how gloriously extemporized they sound, casual and vivifying at the same time.
Though the film is talky, and unapologetically so, the conversations are supremely well-written. They are honest, funny and familiar, rich and charming, illustrative of the issues they touch upon. Linklater, Hawke and Delpy, who contributed to the screenplay, manage to effortlessly express their notions through the writing. "Before Sunset" is one of those rare films that work solely because of its prodigious writing, and this is truly a script for the ages.
Hawke and Delpy give remarkable performances, a certain betterment of the ones they gave in the prequel. Though the romance angle is sadly absent this time around, their intuitive chemistry is a joy to watch.
I can't say if "Before Sunset" is an improvement on its prequel or not but it's definitely more empirical and assured. But like "Before Sunrise", it leaves you with the same euphoric feeling, impelling you to invest in the characters and their lives.