Film: Before Sunset
Director: Richard Linklater
Country: USA
Released: February 2004
Runtime: 80 minutes
Genre: Romantic Drama
Studio: Castle Rock / Warner Bros
Influenced: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, The Duplass Brothers, Lena Dunham, Lynn Shelton
Richard Linklater is one of my favourite contemporary directors, and it was a challenge for me not to include any of his films prior to Before Sunset, which I think is his first true masterpiece. Linklater has always successfully trod the line between independent and mainstream cinema, starting with the success of cult coming-of-age drama Dazed & Confused (1993), the lyrical and sweetly naïve Before Sunrise (1995), philosophical animated features Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006), and the commercially-successful School of Rock (2003). Linklater's filmmaking style and thematic concerns started to evolve in the mid-2000s, as is evident in the technical mastery of Before Sunset, which evokes the glory of Paris as a filming location in such evocative fashion. Also of note is how his films become more thematically daring, in the style of Michael Apted and his legendary Up documentary series (1964–2019), which tracks the evolution of various people over regular time intervals during their life.
Starting in 1964, Apted's Up documentaries followed the lives of 14 people in England from the age of seven years old. The first film was titled Seven Up!, with nine completed before Apted's death in 2021, all filmed at 7-year intervals, with the last in 2019. Linklater takes a slightly different approach, preferring fictional drama to documentary, and one relationship to 14 lives, spacing each of the three films in his Before trilogy apart by 9 years. Another of Linklater's most ambitious cinematic projects, Boyhood (2014), was filmed over a period of 12 years, and follows the life of a boy (Ellar Coltrane) from childhood to adolescence. Both Boyhood and the Before trilogy are known for their naturalistic dialogue and use of long, unbroken takes, giving the audience a sense of real-time engagement with the characters. All three Before films star Ethan Hawke as Jesse and Julie Delpy as Céline, tracking the development of their relationship after first meeting on a train in Vienna in a memorable scene in Before Sunrise.
Before Sunset picks up nine years after the events of the first film. Jesse, now a successful author, is in Paris for the final stop of his book tour. Céline attends the reading, and the two characters reconnect. With Jesse facing a tight deadline before he has to catch a flight, they spend the limited time they have exploring the streets of Paris and discussing their lives, relationships and the choices they've made in real time over the course of the movie's 80 minutes. Linklater, Hawke and Delpy collaborated closely on the screenplay, with much of the dialogue being improvised, adding to the film's authenticity. The genuine chemistry between Hawke and Delpy is a testament to the strength of their collaboration, as well as their skill as actors, and the believability of their relationship is one of the movie's greatest strengths. Several key moments define the film, such as the initial awkwardness and tension when Jesse and Céline reunite, their discussions in a Parisian café and the poignant ending at Céline's apartment.
Before Sunset received widespread critical acclaim and numerous awards. Julie Delpy was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, along with Linklater and Hawke. The film also won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor (Hawke) in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Before Sunset is a rare example of a sequel that not only lives up to the original but surpasses it in many ways, its impact extending far beyond the romantic drama genre, influencing discussions on the nature of relationships and the passage of time in cinema. Before Midnight (2013), the third instalment in the trilogy, is very raw and real about the difficulties of maintaining a relationship in later life, but it's still a very beautiful and touching movie, and a fitting finale. Rumours have abounded about whether their might be a follow-up to Before Midnight, but the 9-year interval in 2022 has now long passed and Hawke and Delpy have both said the trilogy is perfect as it is. Very few movies capture the feeling of falling in love like Before Sunset.
P.S. Seeing who Before Midnight was dedicated to really floored me. You can read more about it here at Slate.
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