BEFORE SUNSET (2004) ***1/2

Reviewed 7/10/04

Richard Linklater clearly can not let go of BEFORE SUNRISE. He brought back Jesse and Celine for a cameo in WAKING LIFE, and now they get a whole sequel. It’s an amazing film, but not an easy sit because it’s a movie that is always “on.” In its brief 80 minutes, there is virtually no moment that is expendable. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) meet again 9 years after the events of BEFORE SUNRISE and hash out what is going on in their lives and what that one day/night has meant to them since. Jesse is now the author of a book about his one night stand with Celine. He is in a rough marriage and has a 4-year old boy and the politically active Celine is an environmentalist dating a war photographer. The dialogue has a stageplay quality in that it is often too pointed and self-consciously philosophical. The interplay between the two characters however strikes several moments of immense poignancy in their truth and emotional power all too rarely captured on film. Celine almost touching Jesse’s head in the back of a car and Celine doing an impression of Nina Simone are careful balancing acts that deliver with greater grace than any high-wire artist. Alas the ending is a bit too much of a cheap tease. Still, the sequel is comparable if not better than BEFORE SUNRISE.