Before Sunrise Movie Trailer. Richard Linklater, the director of “Slacker” and “Dazed and Confused,” has an intoxicatingly romantic idea for his latest film. In “Before Sunrise,” which he wrote with Kim Krizan, Mr. Linklater presents two attractive 20-something travelers who meet eagerly en route to Vienna and share a night of pure freedom there.
In this, the Eurailpass version of “An Affair to Remember,” there’s more than romantic love in the air. There’s also the exhilaration of making contact with a kindred spirit, of instant conversational intimacy between two strangers whose paths could lead them anywhere. Along with the first blush of infatuation, there’s the sense that life holds infinite possibility for characters who are still so avid and unencumbered. When Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) recognize each other as instant soul mates, they talk about everything and nothing as if there were no tomorrow.
Because there isn’t. “Before Sunrise” contrives a one-night time limit on this idyll, thus imposing some dramatic structure on what otherwise might be a string of free-floating riffs and reveries. Like Mr. Linklater’s previous films and like last year’s “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” which was also an the opening-night feature of the Sundance Film Festival, “Before Sunrise” uses external circumstance to shape its storytelling.
The effect here isn’t as seamless, and the stars have to strain for the right naturalness at times. But “Before Sunrise” taps into something universal, capturing the freshness of characters who are as much in love with self-expression as they could be with each other. What Mr. Linklater does best here is to come up with conversational gambits that have just the right fancifulness to suit this situation.
After Jesse spots the beautiful Celine on board a train and tries to talk her into getting off in Vienna with him, for instance, he tells her to think in terms of time travel. Years hence, she may be married to someone else and wondering about the roads not taken, romantically speaking. She may imagine that Jesse would have been wonderful for her, even if actually he’s not. So here, says Jesse, is a chance to find that out ahead of time. When he suggests she think of a night in Vienna “as a favor to your future husband,” he captures Mr. Linklater’s reasoning at its pitch-perfect best.
Mr. Linklater has previously expressed such thoughts through characters more slackerish or stoned than Jesse and Celine happen to be. That makes his direction here less fluid at first, with the actors showing a forced effervescence in their early get-acquainted scenes. Without the studied casualness of his earlier films, Mr. Linklater adopts a straightforwardness that sometimes falls flat, especially with material this talky. “Before Sunrise” counts on charm, chemistry and the city of Vienna to cast a more complete spell than they actually do.
His film becomes more natural in its later stages, as the actors do less bubbling and ease into their roles. Even so, “Before Sunrise” is as uneven as any marathon conversation might be, combining colorful, disarming insights with periodic lulls. The film maker clearly wants things this way, with both these young characters trying on ideas and attitudes as if they were new clothes. Lifelike as that may be, it’s hard to bring off when the actors aren’t entirely in sync.
Mr. Hawke improves greatly once he stops grinning avidly at everything Celine says, and once an element of tenderness begins shading his performance. His is by far the more credible character, and the one to whom the screenwriters allot their best lines. (On the dubious spiritual value of technology: “No one ever says, ‘The time I saved by using my word processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out.’ “) Ms. Delpy is more striking for that Botticelli beauty, which Jesse can’t help describing in just those terms, than for her verisimilitude. Of course, it’s a great burden playing the idealized beautiful, philosophical, free-spirited Frenchwoman in a story like this.
If the lovers of “Before Sunrise” don’t seem a perfect match, that’s somewhat intentional; Mr. Linklater has too much naturalness to give a happily-ever-after rosiness to this story. He means to recall a rite of passage that is real, an intention that comes through clearly even when the film sometimes overreaches or falters.
Considerable credit goes to the film’s third character, Vienna. Aside from presenting great opportunities for these impecunious travelers, who wind up sleeping in a park after visiting an imaginative variety of settings, the city seems to brim over with art, music, poetry (one grating minor character is a grandiose street poet) and one major movie reference (to “The Third Man”). The city becomes a rich, vibrant expression of Jesse and Celine’s wide-open future.
Before Sunrise (1995)
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Andrea Eckert, Hanno Pöschl, Karl Bruckschwaiger, Tex Rubinowitz, Erni Mangold, Bilge Jeschim, Haymon Maria Buttinger, Liese Lyon
Screenplay by: Richard Linklater, Kim Krizan
Production Design by: Florian Reichmann
Cinematography by: Lee Daniel
Film Editing by: Sandra Adair
Costume Design by: Florentina Welley
Makeup Department: Karen Dunst
Music by: Fred Frith
MPAA Rating: R for some strong language.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: January 27, 1995
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