At the start of every month, I go to my HBO Max/Now account, see what movies are new to add to my watchlist and which ones are “leaving soon,” so I know which ones I need to get done sooner or later. I had found two of director Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, the series where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy just hang out and talk for a day while being in love. I had stuck them on the list in the hopes that the third and final one would come along at some point.
Then I saw the two were on the “leaving soon” screen when January rolled around and figured I waited long enough to start with the first, Before Sunrise.
There really isn’t much of a plot to Before Sunrise. American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is on his way to Vienna to catch a flight home while Frenchwoman Celine (Julie Delpy) is returning to college in Paris after a visit to her grandma. She moves her seat to get away from an arguing German couple, she and Jesse strike up a conversation, and the two decide to spend the night just walking around Vienna and exploring the city until Jesse has to get to the airport in the morning and Celine has to get a train back to Paris. They meet various artistic types and fortune tellers, philosophize over life and love, and fall for each other before she gets on a train and he goes off to the airport, neither certain that they would ever see each other again.
There’s two sequels to this movie. They did.
Before Sunrise was, above all else, an utterly charming movie about young love as two people start a relationship. Hawke and Delpy making for a cute, charming couple, and the movie does give them some personalities to mix and match with each other, both in ways that just scream their age as being in their early 20s. He has some ideas about women that are, shall we say, less than enlightened while she herself is a bit more of a romantic. Many of the romantic ideas were actually put into the script by Hawke and Delpy, and it really works.
But the other star may be the city of Vienna itself. It’s a picturesque place full of artists and culture, and the movie shows off its most bohemian-looking locations, all an excellent backdrop for the couple as they just wander in and out of buildings all night. The major tourist sites and museums are closed by the time they arrive, so they settle for cafes, churches, and picturesque streets. I haven’t seen too many movies that made me want to visit a city, but Before Sunrise manages. A charming city, a charming couple, and ultimately, a charming movie. I’ll be getting to the next one soon.
Grade: A
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