Before Sunset (2004)

Directed by Richard Linklater. Starring Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy. [R]

It’s been nine years since Jesse and Céline’s brief but forcefully romantic encounter in Before Sunrise, and their paths cross again after she shows up at his book tour signing in Paris. He puts off going to the airport so they can catch up, and they soon find themselves traveling through the neighborhoods of Paris, sharing and reconnecting and falling in love all over again. Like the characters and their experiences, not as vivacious and wide-eyed as their last “walk-and-talk,” but it’s human nature to only recognize the jejune for its superficiality when it’s barely even a speck anymore in the rearview mirror. Yet as much as the wiser, more mature, and measured attitude is a grateful turn, the film’s masterstroke is the recognition that such small, brightly-burning moments in our past can continue to resonate long after whole years all but fade from memory. The expansive conversation can meander and turn fatuous at times as the two of them dance around the plain-spoken, but that sort of awkward guile is more reflective of real life than the vast majority of other screenplays (romantic or otherwise), and it fits these characters in this situation—Hawke and Delpy both worked on the script with director Linklater. Full of subtly bravura camerawork, utilizing lots of long shots that never easily give away the small cheats of its European afternoon dream artifice. Since Jesse and Céline are both in (admittedly remote) relationships at the start of the film—she with an oft-absent beau, he in an all-but-loveless marriage with a young son—the ambivalence toward infidelity is likely only felt in the aftermath, but its guarded sidelining does stick out after the blush of rekindled passion slips away. Followed by Before Midnight.

84/100