Before Sunrise (R, 1995)

BEFORE SUNRISE tells the story most familiar to all films in a most unfamiliar way. While traveling through Europe, young American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meets a French art student Celine (Julie Delpy). The two strike up a spirited conversation on a train and spontaneously decide to spend an evening together, walking the streets of Vienna. The film is comprised entirely of long takes of Jesse and Celine talking, interspersed with short, subtle glimpses of the poets, performers, and monks that inhabit the Viennese night. On trains, on a ferris wheel, walking through graveyards, they talk about their personal histories, love, sex, death, and God. They fall in love, knowing that this will be the only night they will spend together.

More than most films, Before Sunrise depends upon the likeability of the two main characters. It's this commitment the film makes to these characters, and their budding relationship that makes the film so completely enthralling.

Flaws are included, the disagreements between the couple as essential to establishing the realism that sets the film apart as the intimate connections they make. They hide their vulnerability behind humor and try to talk their way out of the sadness of saying goodbye. Director Richard Linklater's style is appealingly unobtrusive. He lingers on scenes when another director would've cut away, allowing the dialogue and the actors to speak for themselves.

Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Richard Linklater
Cast: Dominik Castell, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Genre: Romance
Run time: 101 minutes
Theatrical release: January 1, 1995
DVD release: November 30, 1999
MPAA Rating: R
MPAA explanation: some strong language.