Before Sunset (2004)
I don’t understand how they managed to create a sequel like this to a perfect movie that didn’t need a followup. On the first glance it is very much as I expected, they meet again and walk around the city and talk, but in many ways it is not at all like the first. It was almost depressing in how it really dug in deep with the feeling of “what might have been”, and how both characters almost broke down but quickly pulled themselves and each other up again.
It is of course very much a romantic film, but I like it doesn’t romanticize the events. This movie deals very much with the negative effects it had on both of them, how they couldn’t let that night go and they have been living almost a decade of unfulfilling lives. Yet we still see hope and joy and falling in love again.
This time, especially Ethan Hawke knocks it out of the park with his acting here. I don’t think I have seen such a convincing performance of someone who hasn’t gotten over that one summerlove. Julie Delpy hides it better at first, and I thought the narrative would be he was still in love and she had moved on, but that was clearly not the case.
And what a curveball of an ending. The first movie gave us the emotional heartfelt goodbye scene - almost traditional and what I was expecting. I was waiting for a similar goodbye scene again here, because everything was kind of leading up to it with him needing to catch that plane. And then it just stops!
I think I better have absolutely zero expectations for Before Midnight.
Rating: 5