Movie Review: Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise: Torgo approves

Rainster recommended this one, as I recall. I kept coming across the sequel, "Before Sunset," and then, Saturday, in the local bookmobile (our local library is being renovated), as it titlted awkwardly to starboard, I found both.

It's an unusual film about an American (Ethan Hawke) who meets a Frenchwoman (Julie Delpy) on a train near Vienna. They begin talking, make an instant connection, then decide to spend the night walking Vienna. She was on her way home to Paris; he's waiting for a flight back to the U.S. in the morning.

The film, then, is composed entirely of this couple becoming a couple (or sorts), talking and learning about each other. There is very little that happens besides the two talking to each other.

I saw another movie like this, with pretty much just two people talking. That was "My Dinner with Andre." It sucked. I fell asleep. Granted, I was tired, on a comfortable couch, and instead of Julie Delpy, it was Wallace Shawn.

I like several things about "Before Sunrise." First, what Rainster liked, Hawke quotes an Auden poem. There's another poetry moment in the film. A man offers to compose a poem for the couple in exchange for money. One movie, two poems: not bad.

I also like how the film captures these two falling in love. The initial flirting, then the development of a relationship over just a few hours, all feels quite real, despite the contrivances of the plot.

Ethan Hawke gets on my nerves a bit. But just when his pretentiousness becomes grating, he says something clever and funny, like his comment on people growing bored with their own stories and, essentially, themselves. Or, Delpy acknowledges his condescensions, playing against the stereotypical, submissive role.

One odd note: Early in the film, Hawke tells a story about his grandmother dying. Or his great-grandmother. In a weird flub, he says 'great-grandmother' and then 'grandmother' in almost the same sentence, talking about the same person. In such a thoughtful film, this mistake was jarring.