White-Hot Passion Of The Mind

Rating: 8/10 (15 July 2004)

That 'Before Sunset' succeeds almost as well as its predecessor, 'Before Sunrise', gives me hope that a romantic movie doesn't have to be hackneyed tripe. That it's stepping in the same places as the original DOES keep it from greatness, though. The first movie was about how American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Frenchwoman Celine (Julie Delpy) spend a day together in Vienna, talking about everything big & small and falling in love. They part and we didn't find out if they ever got back together. The sequel picks up 9 years later when Jesse is in Celine's French neighbourhood on the last leg of his book tour. See, he wrote a successful novel of their one night together, although he has trouble admitting just much she's really meant to him. She unexpectedly meets him in the book store and they conversationally pick up right where they left off.
Experimental indie radical Richard Linklater (who co-wrote the script with his stars and also produced & directed) doesn't waste any time on extraneous material. It's all about the 2 would-be lovers. Jesse might be a married father and Celine might be committed to another man, but they belong together. We know it and they seem to know it too, even though they spend a whole movie fighting their primal urges. They're likable and intelligent people, largely because they're also funny, self-deprecating, and rebellious. Hawke & Delpy invest a great deal of delicacy into their characters too. Not only do the actors have wonderful chemistry, they know when to pull back and be guarded about their feelings.
I recently saw 'My Dinner With Andre', which also sparked bolts of electricity in my brain. I desperately needed to debate someone after seeing that conversation-filled film and I wish I'd taken a date to each of the 'Before' movies. Both are sexy in the best sense. Who needs naked skin and moaning lust when you have white-hot passion of the mind? Since the story is essentially told in real time, these are two people who spend about 80 minutes holding something back. The "will they/won't they" question will not be answered in this review, but that sexual tension keeps the whole production together.
With the exception of his hugely popular ode to rock fun-fest, 'The School Of Rock', Linklater likes to leave loose ends. His pictures work because his characters do what smart people usually do with their free time---talk. And free thinkers usually come around to the subjects of literature and music. How fitting then that Jesse immortalizes Celine through writing, while we later she how she has immortalized him through music. If two characters have ever truly connected on the motion picture screen, it's these two. 'Before Sunset' isn't a perfect movie (partly because it's cribbing so much from the '95 film), but it's a glorious way for lovers and other strangers to connect within the confines of a movie theatre.