Before Sunset

For all the moments in Before Sunrise that I catch a flicker of who I used to be in the words or actions of Ethan Hawke or Julie Delpy's characters, I just can't find many aspects of myself in the sequel.

First and foremost, much of their conversation in this film is predicated on something that did not happen in the first. They go on and on about how they had sex (twice, in fact) in the first film, in the park, late at night. Wha?

But, there is no love scene in the first film. They make out a lot, but if we are meant to assume they indeed did the deed, then that's an awful lot to assume, especially considering how in the first film, Delpy's character told Hawke's that she did not want to have sex because she would feel bad. So they kissed some, and then we cut to daybreak.

I don't need a gratuitous love scene to get this information, but there's just not enough in the first film to suggest these two indeed had sex. And yes, that changes everything if they did. This is a major point.

Frankly, I prefer to think of their relationship as more chaste, because then the first film is about a mental connection, not a cheap one-nighter in Europe. This way, Hawke's character isn't nearly as slimy. Please tell me the whole first film was not a gambit, a conquest in the making, from the moment she sat down next to him on the train.

In the first film, was she saying she didn't want to have sex as some sort of courtesy assertion, so that she wouldn't feel as bad when she went ahead and had sex with him anyway? "At least I protested a little, and didn't just give it up..." What kind of shit is that? No means no.

Before Sunset brings these two characters together once more, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. What we can imagine is always better. I'd rather assume nothing much happened in the park, and that their not knowing what might've happened is what kept them thinking about each other for nine years.

Here, these two are even more self-absorbed and self-aware than ever, yet both are completely unaware of their self-absorption.

That said, maybe there's another interpretation...

Maybe in the years hence, both characters have fantasized so much about that one night, they may have convinced themselves of so much more than what actually happened. Memory is a cruel mistress. Make you think shit happened what didn't. Make you all jangly and shit. Make you dream up shit and shit and confuse it with reality and shit.

In their old(er) age, these two now appear to have a cavalier view of the sexual act and the feelings of others. Both talk openly about having sex with other people, and when posed with a hypothetical, if-we-were-both-dying-what-would-you-do, Hawke's character flippantly suggests they'd be in a hotel room, fucking. Yes, fucking.

I'm not here to argue sexual semantics, but fucking = animalistic, lusty, bereft of romance. As much as I hate the phrase "make love," isn't there a better phrase at his disposal? Let's pretend we're bunny rabbits? Brown chicken brown cow? Nope. Fucking.

Further, a strength of Before Sunrise — their meeting other people on the streets of Vienna (the poet, the palm reader, and even the bartender who gave them the wine) — is nonexistent here, which only adds to the self-absorption. They meet a waitress who takes their order. They speak briefly to Hawke's character's driver, Phillipe, then leave him sitting in the car. That's it. Paris has no interesting people — apparently they're all in Vienna.

They still show their pseudo-intellectual sides, and they talk about more current events, the death of Nina Simone, etc., but most of the film they spend hand-wringing and wrestling with the emotions that well up while processing the fact that here they are, together again, after nine long years during which both of them grew convinced they'd truly never meet again.

I felt a sense of affection for these characters, and a warmth when I saw the flashback clips in the beginning. However, by the end of this film, I just found myself hoping that Hawke's character would do the right thing. Get up, get your jacket, exchange contact info, and say goodbye again, and promise to write this time. Go home to your wife and kid and get things sorted before you start fooling around, because it's not just your life anymore, you selfish prick.

I keep this film on hand for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is just to see where these characters are now, and how Linklater tied the two films together. I appreciate Linklater's writing so much.

However, I also like to remind myself that sometimes what we really wish for and think we really want is the last thing we actually need. When we get what we think we really, really want, what we end up with is often quite underwhelming.