Defining Favourites: Before Sunrise (1995)
The start of Richard Linklater's beloved romantic trilogy captures the very feeling of falling in love and wanting the moment to last forever.
Welcome to my Defining Favourites, a section dedicated to essays about films that I feel confident in calling favourites in some way or another - akin to Roger Ebertâs âGreat Moviesâ reviews. These essays are for paid subscribers, so if you would like to read more beyond the free preview, please consider subscribing.
Directed by Richard Linklater
Screenplay by Richard Linklater, Kim Krizan
Produced by Anne Walker-McBay
Starring Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Premiere Date: January 19, 1995
Running Time: 101 minutes
A single conversation leads to the most meaningful encounter of oneâs own life in Before Sunrise. It just so happens that from there, even more can sprout, and even our own views of love change drastically in turn. The concept of Before Sunrise is one that seems very simple on the surface, in which Richard Linklater works with the familiar set-up of a meet-cute romance story, where a boy and a girl meet and then fall in love almost instantly. But where Before Sunrise differs from most of these films comes from the fact that weâre sticking with our two lovers from beginning to end â and it seems like thereâs not much else happening underneath. Yet for Richard Linklater, that might be enough to make whatâs also one of the best romance films ever made.
Frankly, the film having a setup as ordinary as a boy and a girl meeting on a train can only be as perfect as any romantic story can sprout. But Ethan Hawkeâs Jesse and Julie Delpyâs CĂ©line donât start out just like the simple âboy meets girlâ concept. Jesse is in Vienna to catch a plane back to the United States, CĂ©line is en route to her university in Paris after visiting her grandmother. Then it just so happens that they strike a conversation with one another. They connect, and then something that seemed so small only builds itself up from there. But for the two of them, this isnât just some small moment in the grand scheme of things, it just happens that this encounter might be one of the best things ever to happen to them.
