A modern romance story

Rating: 3/10 (10 March 2009)

Yes, a modern romance, and I don't mean that in the best sense. If you like a movie that elevates romance to a higher level, you may want to skip this.
Enough has been said by other reviewers about the non-stop dialog, but it was other things that troubled me far more.
For a romance story to work, it is essential that you have likable characters that you want to end up together. Depending on where you are coming from philosophically, you may love the Jesse and Celine characters or they may drive you crazy. In my case, it was the latter, as Jesse is like a rudderless smart ass who smugly thinks he is so profound, but Celine is far worse as an annoying, stereotypical liberal flake.
The main problem is that the script takes romance and reduces it to a cheap, matter-of-fact mundaneness, especially with the amount of casual droppings of f-bombs to describe the act of love. Maybe it's just me, but I find nothing cute nor attractive about couples in a genre like this talking with a blase vulgarity to one another. Talk about destroying the mystique of romance and reducing it down to things that cats do to each other in the alley.
In the prequel, "Before Sunrise," there was far less of this, and the characters had a little bit more charm and innocence. But now it's 9 years later: Jesse foolishly married someone he can't stand, and Celine comes off as extremely hard and cynical. If that vulgarity isn't enough to turn you off, there's plenty of politics and anti-Americanism to help you along.
It not only undermines the "magic" that supposedly occurred between them in the first film but will serve to cause a lot of viewers to not give a rip whether they end up together or not...which, of course, is the big question that the whole movie drags its way to answering.
Lacking charm, sweetness, innocence, and boiled down to gritty "naturalism" this film probably appeals to some for those very reasons, but if Jane Austen is your brand of romance, beware..."Pride and Prejudice" this surely ain't!