The romance is rekindled but is it too late for them?

Rating: 8/10 (8 August 2005)

After reading a number of the negative reviews, I was expecting a real stinker, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the naysayers are, in my opinion, off the mark. "Before Sunset" is a fairly good movie, if not as absorbing as "Before Sunrise." The first flick had one thing going for it and that was the young Julie Delpy as Celine. In the sequel, she is older, thinner, and (if possible) sexier, adding a degree of sophistication and a greater sense of style to her youthful beauty and innocence. Despite having become rather cynical and pessimistic, she carries herself with more confidence and has developed her talents, which she illustrates at the conclusion of the film when she sings the song she wrote for Jessie about their night in Vienna. After hearing that, he wasn't going anywhere, at least, not for awhile longer.
Ethan Hawke as Jessie has matured and perhaps become slightly less annoying, but the last decade has definitely taken its inevitable toll. The long wavy locks of his youth are gone, replaced by a sort of unkempt, quasi-butch haircut that doesn't suit him very well. Otherwise, he has neatened up his appearance considerably. Older and presumably wiser, he is still arrogant, yet is now more pretentious and has become rather flip and deceptive, while both he and Celine are cigarette smokers. That's something of a turnoff, especially in her case. The dialog is occasionally interesting when they are not shoveling a complete load, yet the tension of their meeting after so many years apart is palpable. The scene in the car, in particular, is a catharsis, at least for Celine. Finally, she gets good and angry with Jesse (the dope), then almost crying, reveals how much she is hurt by the way he has gone on with his life, suddenly showing up as if he could squeeze her love into his busy itinerary (a second time) without any commitment to their future. His answer, designed to temporarily unburden himself of the baggage he has brought along, I found to be slickly self-serving and somewhat cloying. How that young fool could have been absent as the lovely Celine lived out her twenties and lost the edge of her youth is utterly beyond me, but (we are to believe) that's life. The ending, as such, is somewhat more hopeful than the conclusion of the first movie. At least Jessie is willing to miss his plane in order to sleep with Celine one more time, but one suspects that is all he will do, even considering her beautiful song, in which she confesses that he will own her heart until she dies. I suspect it is wasted on Jessie, who remains a self-absorbed jerk. Hopefully, there will be another flick concluding the series and somehow resolving the dilemma in which they now find themselves, if that is possible.