Before Sunset

Before Sunset
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Richard Linklater
Produced by	Richard Linklater
Written by	Richard Linklater Ethan Hawke Julie Delpy Kim Krizan
Starring	Ethan Hawke Julie Delpy
Music by	Julie Delpy
Cinematography	Lee Daniel
Distributed by	Warner Independent Pictures
Release date(s)	February 10, 2004 (2004-02-10) (BIFF) July 2, 2004 (2004-07-02) (limited)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English French
Budget	$2.7 million
Box office	$15,992,615

Before Sunset is a 2004 American romantic drama film and the sequel to Before Sunrise (1995). Like its predecessor, the film was directed by Richard Linklater. However, this time Linklater shares screenplay credit with both actors from the movies, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Linklater also shares story credit with the original Before Sunrise screenwriter Kim Krizan.

The film picks up the story in Before Sunrise where a young American man (Hawke) and a young French woman (Delpy) meet on a train and spend one night in Vienna. Nine years later in Before Sunset, their paths intersect again. It plays out in real time as they spend one afternoon together in Paris.

Before Sunset received broad acclaim, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Plot

Nine years have passed since the events of Before Sunrise, when Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) had met in Vienna. Since then, Jesse has written a novel, This Time, inspired by his time with Celine, and the book has become an American bestseller. To help sales in Europe, Jesse does a book tour. The last stop of the tour is Paris, and Jesse is doing a reading at the bookstore Shakespeare and Company. As Jesse talks with his audience, flashbacks are shown of him and Celine in Vienna; the memories of their night together have clearly remained with him despite nine years having elapsed. Three journalists are present at the bookstore, interviewing Jesse: a romantic who is convinced the book's main characters meet again, a cynic who is convinced that they don't, and a third one who, despite wanting them to meet again, remains doubtful they actually do. As he speaks with his audience his eyes wander to the side, and he can hardly believe it: Celine is smiling at him.

Once the presentation is over, the bookstore manager reminds him he has a plane to catch and must leave for the airport in a little more than an hour, and so just like in Before Sunrise, Celine and Jesse's reunion is constrained by time. As in the earlier movie, the characters are forced to make the best of the little time they have together, making it easier for their conversations to become ever more personal, beginning with the usual thirty-something's themes of work and politics and then, with ever increasing passion, approaching their love for each other, just as their time together is running out.

Early in their conversation, they broach the subject of why they did not meet as promised six months after their first encounter. It turns out that Jesse had returned to Vienna, as promised, but Celine did not, because her grandmother had suddenly died before the scheduled date of the meeting. Because Jesse and Celine had never exchanged addresses, there was no way for them to contact each other, which resulted in their missed connection.

As they talk, each reveals what has happened in their lives since first meeting. Both are now in their early thirties. Jesse, now a writer, is married and has a son. Celine has become an advocate for the environment, lived in America for a time, and has a boyfriend, a photojournalist. It becomes clear in the course of their talk that both are dissatisfied to varying degrees with their lives. Jesse reveals that he only stays with his wife out of love for his son. Celine says that she does not see her boyfriend very much because he is so often on assignment.

Their conversation as they traverse Paris takes place in various venues, including a café, a garden, a bateau mouche, and Jesse's hired car for his stay in Paris. Their old feelings for each other are slowly rekindled, even with tension and regret over the missed meeting earlier, as they realize that nothing else in their lives has matched their one prior night together in Vienna. Jesse eventually admits that he wrote the book in the distant hope of meeting Celine again one day. She replies that the book brought back painful memories for her. At one point, in the hired car, during a tense moment when Jesse is confessing his loveless, near sexless marriage, Celine reaches her hand out to touch Jesse but pulls back just as he turns to her.

In the concluding scene, Celine and Jesse arrive at her apartment. Jesse had learned that Celine plays the guitar and persuades her to play a waltz song for him. The waltz (written by Delpy) is revealed through the lyrics to be about their brief encounter.

Jesse then plays a Nina Simone CD on the stereo system. Celine dances by herself to the song "Just in Time" as Jesse watches her. As Celine imitates Simone, she playfully imitates Simone's voice and says to Jesse, "Baby ... you are gonna miss that plane." As the camera slowly pans in, Jesse smiles while nervously fidgeting with his wedding ring and responds, "I know", as the film ends.

Cast

• Ethan Hawke as Jesse
• Julie Delpy as Celine
• Vernon Dobtcheff as Bookstore Manager
• Louise Lemoine Torres as Journalist #1
• Rodolphe Pauly as Journalist #2
• Mariane Plasteig as Waitress
• Diabolo as Philippe
• Denis Evrard as Boat Attendant
• Albert Delpy as Man at Grill
• Marie Pillet as Woman in Courtyard

Production

The movie was filmed in 15 days, on a budget of about US$2 million. Hawke commented on the reason for making the film:

“

It's not like anybody was begging us to make a second film. We obviously did it because we wanted to.

”

This film is noted for its use of the Steadicam for tracking shots and its use of long takes, with the longest of the Steadicam takes at about 11 minutes. The summer was one of the hottest on record, and the cast and crew suffered along with the citizens of Paris as temperatures exceeded 100 degrees F for most of the production. Noteworthy too is that the film takes place essentially in real time, i.e. the time elapsed in the story is also the run time of the film. In the fast changing temperate Paris climate, this created challenges for the cinematographer Lee Daniel to match the color and intensity of the skies and ambient light from scene to scene. Adding to the difficulty, the scenes were mostly shot in sequence as the screenplay was still being developed as the film was shot. Producer Anne Walker-McBay worked with less time and less money than she had on Before Sunrise, and struggled to bring the film in on time and on budget, which she was ultimately able to do. The sequel was released nine years after Before Sunrise, the same amount of time that has lapsed in the plot since the events of the first movie.

Hawke had suggested the possibility of further films in the series. He said that it would be nice to develop further the course of their relationship. The film appeared in the wake of Hawke's divorce from Uma Thurman, and some commentators drew parallels between Hawke's own life and the character of Jesse in the film. Additional comment has noted that both Hawke and Delpy incorporated elements of their own lives into the screenplay, such as the fact that Delpy lived for several years in New York City. Delpy also wrote two songs featured in the film. A third was included in the closing credits and movie soundtrack.

Release

Before Sunset premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2004, and received a limited release in the United States on July 2, 2004.

Box office

In its opening weekend, the film grossed $219,425 in 20 theaters in the United States, averaging $10,971 per theater. During its entire theatrical run, the film grossed $5.8 million in the United States and nearly $16 million worldwide.

Critical reception

Before Sunset received a highly positive reception from the critics. It held a 95% favorable rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 159 reviews, and was assigned a weighted average score of 90/100 by Metacritic based on 39 reviews from mainstream publications, indicating "universal acclaim". The film appeared on 28 critics' top 10 lists of the best films of 2004, and took the 27th spot on Metacritic's list of The Best-Reviewed Movies of the Decade (2000–09). In the UK, the film was ranked the 110th greatest movie of all time by a 2008 Empire poll. In 2010, the critics at The Guardian named Before Sunrise/Before Sunset No 3 best romantic film of all time, and called the ending of Before Sunset "one of the most tantalising and ingenious endings in all cinema."

In comparing this film with the original, film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "Before Sunrise was a remarkable celebration of the fascination of good dialogue. But Before Sunset is better, perhaps because the characters are older and wiser, perhaps because they have more to lose (or win), and perhaps because Hawke and Delpy wrote the dialogue themselves." In her review for the Los Angeles Times, Manohla Dargis lauded the film as a "deeper, truer work of art than the first," and complimented director Linklater for making a film that "keeps faith with American cinema at its finest."

Reviewing the acting, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone observed, "Hawke and Delpy find nuance, art and eroticism in words, spoken and unspoken. The actors shine." Philip French of The Observer wrote, "Both Hawke and Delpy are excellent and their performances have real depth. This time, too, they're doing more than appearing as fictional creations in a Richard Linklater film. They now share the writing credit with him and are clearly putting much of their experiences of the past decade into characters they have possessed and been possessed by."

On the merits of the script, A. O. Scott of The New York Times noted, it was "sometimes maddening," but "also enthralling, precisely because of its casual disregard for the usual imperatives of screenwriting." He further elaborated, "Can't they just say what they mean? Can you? Language, after all, is not just about points and meanings. It is a medium of communication, yes, but also of avoidance, misdirection, self-protection and plain confusion, all of which are among the themes of this movie, which captures a deep truth seldom acknowledged on screen or in books."

Speculation about a sequel

Hawke is quoted in several publications as saying that he, Delpy and Linklater may consider doing a sequel to Before Sunset, set nine years after the end of the film.

Top 10 lists

As noted by Metacritic, the film appeared on the following critics' top 10 lists of 2004.

• 1st – Village Voice Film Poll (94 film critics surveyed)
• 1st – Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com
• 1st – Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
• 2nd – David Ansen, Newsweek
• 2nd – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
• 2nd – Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle
• 3rd – Ty Burr, The Boston Globe
• 3rd – Kimberley Jones, Austin Chronicle
• 3rd – James Berardinelli, ReelViews
• 3rd – Charles Taylor, Salon.com
• 3rd – Dennis Lim, Village Voice
• 4th – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
• 4th – Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
• 4th – Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun

• 5th – Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle
• 6th – Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
• 6th – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
• 6th – Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
• 6th – J. Hoberman, Village Voice
• 7th – Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
• 7th – Lawrence Toppman, Charlotte Observer
• 8th – Scott Foundas, LA Weekly
• 9th – Claudia Puig, USA Today
• 9th – Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
• No order specified – Ella Taylor, LA Weekly
• No order specified – Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times
• No order specified – Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
• No order specified – Shawn Anthony Levy, Portland Oregonian

Awards and nominations

Awards

• 2004 Boston Society of Film Critics Award – Best Film (2nd place)

Nominations

• 2004 77th Academy Awards – Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) for Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, and Kim Krizan.
• 2004 Independent Spirit Award – Best Screenplay for Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy
• 2005 Writers Guild of America Award – Best Adapted Screenplay for Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, and Kim Krizan.
• 2004 Berlin International Film Festival – Golden Bear
• 2004 Gotham Awards – Best Film

External links

• Official website
• Before Sunset at the Internet Movie Database
• Before Sunset at AllRovi
• Before Sunset at Box Office Mojo
• Before Sunset at Rotten Tomatoes
• Before Sunset at Metacritic
• An Interview with Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy by Los Angeles Times