Disappointing.

Rating: 4/10 (24 March 2005)

Before Sunset is an oddity, a sequel to the one-night-in-Vienna romance of 1994's Before Sunrise. This time the pair reunites 10 yrs later in Paris and 98% of the movie's length is one unbroken conversation between the two. Sadly Julie Delpy ain't quite as beautiful while it seems Ethan Hawke has caught a nasty case of the Hivees. She's an environmental activist and still single he's married and is oh merely a best-selling novelist on a publicity tour promoting his book based on the one night these two spent together in the first flick. So it all gets very self-reflexive real quick, and annoying and not hot. She says that she's romantically numb and he describes his married life as running a nursery with a woman he used to date and has had sex < 10 times in 4 years. They don't kiss or make any promise to meet again and it's all ambiguous and noncommittal and forgettable. The screenplay was co-written by the two stars and a lot of the dialogue is humorless and chilly. I'm pretty annoyed by the whole thing and I think I've loved every other movie directed by my man Linklater, from School of Rock to Dazed & Confused to Waking Life to Slacker. This one I can live without. Mitigating factor: Delpy's awesome apartment, revealed in the last 10 minutes.