Decent Premise; Terrible Film (*some spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (18 July 2004)

Hitchcock's aphorism, "Film is life with the boring bits cut out" has been contradicted by "Before Sunset" - a film with the dramatic bits cut out and nothing left but tedious blathering.
The premise seems promising enough: two characters - amazingly reunited after a one night stand nine years earlier - talk for 95 minutes. They are clearly drawn to one another but have moved on in their :lives. We hang on wondering whether or not they will leave their current lives and partners and remain together, or go their separate ways once again.
The film feels like an extended improvised acting exercise or a really bad soap opera scene that doesn't know when to stop. The characters blather on and on but their conversation is flat; it lacks wit or charm. We're left to stare at these two young actors jabbering about getting old: Julie Delpy looks self-consciously coy - the years have given her face a bit more interest but she's lost some of her girlish sensualness; Ethan Hawke. looks more and more like Tom Cruise, flashing his eyes and baring his enormous white teeth. Probably a master like Woody Allen could have sustained this situation with wit and intelligence. But here the actors are left to direct the show themselves; wallow in horrible, self indulgent, shallow, vacuous conversation. It's downright painful and even embarrassing to watch.