![]() Sure, they would have been different if they had seen it through, but not necessarily for the better. He has to leave for the airport at 7:30.įitting into the collegiate preoccupations both Jesse and Celine had in Before Sunrise, Before Sunset uses their ill-fated first reunion as a way to ponder questions of faith, the “what if” scenarios suggesting a different path for the wannabe lovers. And they only have a couple of hours to get the job done. Both begin with a desire to present their best face, forgetting that they are with the only person who is really capable of unmasking their pretenses. Of course, those alterations are based on what they feel and what they wish to suppress or keep secret-a tactic that spills over into how they represent their current life. Or, perhaps more precisely, it questions the quality of a particular witness or narrator: how does their retelling of Before Sunrise change based on what they prefer to hide or celebrate. More importantly, though, it brings up the question of perception: his version of events vs. They are fictional characters that, at least for a brief period of the movie, are grappling with fictional versions of themselves. ![]() This adds a fun metatextual layer to the movie. The impetus for their reunion in Before Sunset is that he has written a novel about their one night together, and the book tour has brought him to Paris. He has chosen to stay in that moment, regardless of how much his life charges on. Though, even as she points out, Jesse has arrested himself. She is not sure she can ever again feel the way she did during their Viennese dalliance. ![]() I mean, there is a definite irony to her being jaded by romance, when he suffered the true disappointment yet, her failure to carry through has arrested her emotional development. Then again, he is also in an unhappy marriage, so maybe by being so grounded he can appreciate feelings that are less so. Where their paths diverged somehow caused him to increase his belief, and for her to tamp her romance down. Amusingly, Jesse is more hopeful now, and Celine (Julie Delpy) is a politically driven realist. They’ve had a whole life to live, to fail, to lose or hang onto their romantic notions. Before Sunset has a level of sincerity about what it means to be in one’s 30s that underlines how sincere its predecessor was about capturing the airiness of being in your early 20s. He’s not setting out to make a crowd-pleasing affirmation of Before Sunrise’s goopier potentialities. And like most second parts, many fans are going to argue that it’s the best. It feels incomplete, acting as the connection between the kick-off and the finale. I give the same answer about the ending of 12 Reasons Why I Love Her.īefore Sunset is the very definition of a middle part of a trilogy. Specifically, the “did they or didn’t they” ending being a litmus test for how romantic you are. I mention this in part because how Jesse (still played by Ethan Hawke) answers the questions about the book he wrote fictionalizing the events of Before Sunrise sounds a lot like how I answer questions about my books. It wasn’t until the graphic designer working on my graphic novel with Joëlle Jones, 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, gave me a DVD copy and insisted that I give it a try that I finally did. I had dismissed the notion of a sequel to Before Sunrise, being in my early 30s and still full of strange and precious ideals about story, I had rejected the idea that the magic could be recaptured or that we needed to know if Jesse and Celine ever saw each other again. ![]() Confession: I didn’t see Before Sunset during its theatrical run, it was a couple of years before I finally gave in and checked it out.
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