Before Sunset

Review by Clint Morris

In a time where the most high-priced, glitzy ideas seem to be the only films that garner an audience, it's refreshing to find a film that possesses none of the elements that satisfies the requirements of a modern-day blockbuster.

Before Sunset, Richard Linklater's sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) has no explosions, no heroics, no pop music soundtrack, no monsters… Instead, it's got two of the most level-headed characters in film in years.

Unlike the films that feature a gun-toting male protagonist or leather-adorned superhero, this is real life, and it couldn't be more welcome.

Picking up nine years after they first met in Paris, Before Sunset sees Jessie and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy), meeting again, purely out of chance.

Celine appears at the bookstore where Jessie reads from his first novel, which not inadvertently is based on the train trip where they first met. They go for coffees, a walk, sit on a park bench and ultimately boat-ride where they get each other up to speed on what they've been doing the last nine years of their lives.

And at the same time, they leave audiences on the edge on their seats, wondering when that first passionate kiss will come…or if it'll come at all.

The only difference between Before Sunrise and Before Sunset -- besides Ethan Hawke's newly gaunt look -- is that the first film was set in a space of fourteen hours and this is set in real-time. Other than that it's business as usual.

Their conversations are assiduous, yet brilliant (and again, real), the chemistry is again inimitable, and the locations are as beautiful as ever. Before Sunset is as un-Hollywood as a film can be. And it's just fantastic.

You could truly spend days watching these two characters - they've been better fleshed-out than an open wound. It's amazing how funny, romantic and suspenseful real life can be.

Don't miss this one. It's one of the best films of the year.

4.5 out of 5

Before Sunset
Australian release: Thursday August 19th
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Vernon Dobtcheff, Louise Lemoine Torres, Rodolphe Pauly.
Director: Richard Linklater.
Website: Click here.

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