BEFORE SUNRISE
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1995 Ben Hoffman
Put aside reality and put on a cloak of romantic make believe. Pretend that everything that happens in the film could really occur and then sit back and look at Jesse (Ethan Hawkes), the handsome American traveling on Eurail. Nor will you have any problem keeping your eyes on French student Celine (Julie Delpy), perhaps the loveliest face in movies today, who sits opposite him in the train.
It takes only a few moments of idle conversation before he tells her that he is leaving for the U.S. tomorrow and how would she like to postpone her trip back to Paris and school and spend the next fourteen hours sightseeing with him? After a slight (ever so slight) hesitation she agrees.
The camera follows them through Vienna and other cities until the following morning when, at the railroad station, it is time for them to say "Goodbye." Does that mean forever?
If such an adventure could happen to anyone (and people do have a tendency to leave behind some of their conventional behavior when they are traveling many miles from home) Jesse and Celine would be the ones. What a handsome, lovely pair they make.
Directed by Richard Linklater.
2.5 bytes 4 Bytes = Absolutely must see. 3 Bytes = Too good to be missed. 2 Bytes = So so. 1 Byte = Save your money.
Ben Hoffman
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews