‘Before Sunrise’ makes for sweet, dialogue-driven date
Hawke, Delpy breathe life into one-night romance with silences
louder than words
By Michael Horowitz
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Before Sunrise, on balance, is a good date.
There are rough parts, places where dumb things are uttered,
awkward spaces where you want it to move on, times when it lags and
threatens to turn into a nightmare. But there are some beautiful
moments, some scenes where you feel 100 percent enraptured, and
times when you feel like it couldn’t be any better. The overall
positive impression makes for convenient memory lapses.
This film is a big step for Richard Linklater, who’s first film
Slacker introduced over 100 characters, briefly sketching them and
then moving on. This time out he’s got two people who talk for the
entire 101 minutes. The beauty is in the details, the life
experience, the personal observations of fully fleshed out
people.
Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is taking a train into Vienna where he’s
catching a flight back to the States. Celine (Julie Delpy) is
headed back to her native Paris on the same train. The two get to
talking and Jesse pitches his bold idea: that Celine should get off
the train with him and spend 24 hours in the city before he leaves.
It’s the kind of proposition that always works in movies but seldom
in real life.
She says yes and they begin their walk.
That’s basically the plot of Before Sunrise, because there isn’t
much dramatic narrative or character development. It’s two
characters bouncing off each other in revealing conversations with
moments of silence that mean more than the words.
Jesse is a self-proclaimed realist whose jaded side occasionally
lets down to reveal a shy romantic. Celine is optimistic,
intelligent and lives for the moment.
Their best scene together (actually conceived by Delpy) is in a
cafe where the two pretend to tell their friends back home about
their new acquaintance. They blush through mutual compliments while
cracking jokes.
With writing like this, it’s disappointing when Linklater pens
bad dialogue in other places, or just nothing dialogue that pulls
you out of their conversation. If you don’t relate to the good
stuff you won’t have the endurance for his little meaning
non-sequiturs.
Absolutely gorgeous Julie Delpy, who’s done little American work
outside of the hapless Three Musketeers, brings a strength and
conviction to Celine that would have been lacking with another
actress.
Before Sunrise could have easily devolved into Ethan & the
Cute but Dumb Chick, but you walk away from the theater wanting to
hang out with her for another 24 hours straight.
Hawke delivers one of his best portrayals since Dead Poets’
Society, tenderly emoting and then brashly joking. While he debunks
fortune tellers and spontaneous poets he is at the height of his
comic timing.
And then there is Linklater, who is as much a character as the
others due to his stylistic dialogue; sometimes the words ignore
the characters that speak them. His characters have no real back
stories; they wander the present with the past as a collection of
anecdotes to justify arguments in the here and now. They don’t
change, they observe. They toss out revolutionary ideas just to use
for five minutes.
Before Sunrise could do well enough to bring many more of these
characters to the screen. Or it could confirm that mass America
isn’t on the same wavelength Linklater clings to. Either way, it’s
a good date.
FILM: Before Sunrise Directed by Richard Linklater. Starring
Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy. Opens today.