I Watched Before Sunrise 27 Years Late and It Made Me Less Dead Inside
But if soul patches make a comeback, I don't want to know about it.
As an Xennial, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that before this year I’d never seen Before Sunrise—apparently a seminal romantic film of my youth—or either of the other two films in the trilogy directed by Richard Linklater. I guess I’d been under the impression that they were pretentious? Which they kind of are? But in a gentle and fun-to-watch way. The original release of Before Sunrise also coincided with a lengthy period in my life when I hid my squishy romantic heart under a veneer of cynical Not Like Other Girls bullshit. (“The characters fall in love and aren’t miserable about it? No thanks, I’ll just watch Leaving Las Vegas again.”)
These days, however, I am all about the love stories! We’ve just spent the past two and a half years living through a pandemic, as well as the systematic dismantling of many of our most precious rights. That means that in between reading the news and writing about people doing awful things to one another, I need continual reminders of why we live!
It probably still would never have occurred to me to watch these films if my husband Sean (whose media consumption usually runs more in the Marvel direction, but who also really likes Aaron Sorkin) hadn’t suggested it. He thought they would hit right at the intersection of my penchants for “artsy depressing movies” (wow, roast me, Sean) and well-written dialogue.
Of course, he was right. I was super into the artsiness and the dialogue, as well as the nuanced deep dive into the evolution of a long-term relationship. From the first flush of attraction to…whatever happens eighteen years after that.
Note: the following will contain discussion of plot points in the Before trilogy. I’m not sure I’d even call them spoilers, because the movies aren’t plot driven. But if you really don’t want to know what happens, scroll on down to the Author News section, where I have a giveaway.
Before Sunrise
“Jesse” is absolutely the name I would picture a guy like Ethan Hawke’s character having. He’s a little bit glib, a little bit self-absorbed, but with hips that look very good in jeans. In short, your stereotypical early-twentysomething American white guy finding himself in Europe.
Me: Ew, his hair’s so greasy.
Sean: No, that’s product. See? The hair doesn’t move!
Me: Still ew.
This kind of dude very much would have been my jam in 1995, soul patch included. The grown-up version of him is very much not my jam now. Growth! But Hawke brings a vulnerability and depth to the role that drew me right in. I can see why Linklater likes working with him so much.
Julie Delpy is, of course, an absolute queen. Celine speaks with such depth and confidence. Everything she says is fascinating (Hawke and Delpy co-wrote the dialogue with Linklater for all three films) and Jesse is just … captivated by her. Get you a person who looks at you like Jesse looks at Celine, even when they’ve got no earthly idea what you’re talking about. Or better yet, who actually tries to understand what you’re talking about.
I love the same thing everyone loves about this movie: the give and take of their conversations and how they move organically from one topic to the next. It’s the kind of naturalistic dialogue that can only be produced through hours and hours and hours of work, but it looks effortless! Magic.
I got distracted, in a good way, by the touches that evoke ‘90s youth culture. Like the club with the pinball machine; I’ve been in so many places like that. Drinking the dollar beers. Listening to the earnest, untalented open mic guy. Even Celine’s strappy-dress-over-a-T-shirt outfit. O nostalgia, etcetera.
One of my favorite parts of the film has to be the end, where we revisit all their “places,” some beautiful, some mundane. [1] It’s a sentimental passage, but not overbearing because the shots are so unfussy. It’s a perfect, bittersweet closing, satisfying even if we’d never found out what happened six months later. However! I’m glad we did, and also that I personally did not have to wait nine years.
Before Sunset
So, Jesse and Celine meet up, right? Right? (Just pretend the Anakin/Padme meme is right here.)
Oh man, it’s devastating. “Nah,” Jesse says, completely without conviction, when Celine asks him if he turned up at the train station, and you can tell he’s trying to spare both her feelings and his own pride. I’m glad they actually address the elephant in the room, which is why they didn’t just exchange phone numbers OR LAST NAMES (!!!) back in Vienna (and they acknowledge that their reasons for not doing so were naive and dumb).
If Before Sunrise was pure possibility, the fizzy euphoria of meeting someone you connect with on multiple levels, then Before Sunset has an element of tragedy to it.
Once again, Linklater and the actors pull off the sorcery of taking well-trod story territory (aging male intellectual contemplates cheating on his wife [2]) and making it fresh. Like, it’s complicated. It’s layered. It has conversations about imperialism. And whatever you might think of Jesse as a character (a bit of a dick, actually!) it’s such a nuanced portrait that you can’t help but sympathize.
I love how you can see that, at their core, these two are the same people they were nine years ago (they even have a conversation about it, referencing Celine’s childhood diaries). They’ve grown up and each has found their own version of success, but they also ache to regain some of the naivete and sensitivity they’ve lost. Sensitivity is also rawness, though; Jesse says he gave up on the idea of romantic love when Celine didn’t turn up at the train station, and Celine rarely allows herself to get involved with people, because it hurts too much when the relationships end. The speech where she says that her night with Jesse was basically the end of her belief in love? “It’s not even about you anymore, it’s about that moment in time that is forever gone.” All the sobbing emojis.
That’s why reading Jesse’s book upsets Celine so much - because it reminds her of a part of herself she’s lost. Neither of them has been able to let go through all the years of their separation, which, I could see many real-life scenarios where this would be creepy! Especially if the feelings weren’t mutual! But here it’s perfect and romantic.
We don’t know for sure until the very end that they’ll be able to let themselves be together. [3] There are hints, but the film sustains that tension through the entire 80 minutes (so short! Marvel could learn a thing or two tbh) and then breaks it in such a lovely way. Nina Simone is always a good idea.
Before Midnight
Here’s where we get real, friends. Jesse and Celine have been in a committed relationship for nine years, have twin daughters together, and have just sent Hank, Jesse’s fourteen-year-old son from his previous marriage, home from the “best summer ever” in Greece.I love the subtle indications that Jesse and his son actually haven’t spent that much QT together over the summer. They get along well enough, but they’re more like friendly acquaintances than father and son, whereas Celine talks to Hank multiple times on the phone in this lovely, motherly way. (Hank presumably does not ask to speak to his dad.) When Celine tells Jesse that Hank might have been more excited about the girl he met than spending the summer with his father, Jesse reacts in the most Ethan Hawke Character From the Nineties way possible, which is to get kind of hurt and sulky.
But Jesse did it to himself, right? He’s spent most of his time hanging out with the other men at the villa, fellow writers. “Telling each other you’re geniuses,” Celine says wearily. She’s entitled to her frustration, because while the men pontificate, the women, in a fashion deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions [4], have been doing all the cooking and childminding and other vacation work.
Considering Jesse’s relative detachment from his son, it’s ironic that one of the main conflicts between him and Celine is that he wants her to uproot her entire life and identity and move to Chicago so they can be more present in Hank’s life. Imagine if he wanted her to move to Indiana! Or Texas! It could be a lot worse, Celine! But the more important observation is that Celine pronounces “Chicago” in the cutest, most French way possible. (I don’t know if timestamped YouTube embeds will actually work here, but it happens at 9:30.)
I would be super interested to see what readers who have seen all three of these movies think - are these two kids gonna make it? Would Before Rush Hour just be Jesse and Celine in family court tussling over custody of the twins? Because the end seems like a detente at best.
I get why some people like to pretend Before Midnight doesn’t exist, but I appreciate its willingness to get into the messiness, dullness, and pettiness of long-term relationships without demonizing either partner (that is handled by the YouTube comment section, unfortunately).
I’ll end my analysis with Celine’s response to Ariadni’s story about the difference between men and women when they wake from comas (slightly NSFW):
Notes
[1] I love that the random industrial spool in the alley is included here, though Celine should not have gone into an alley with a dude she just met! However, this is exactly the kind of terrible decision I would have made at 23, so.
[2] Not sure if this is a gender-socialization thing or I’ve just seen more family dramas than Sean has, but for me Jesse being married was very much “Duh, of course he is” (And I looked for the ring in his and Celine’s first scene together) whereas Sean was blindsided.
[3] We were concerned about the fate of Jesse’s driver, who’s probably going to get blamed for this American twit missing his flight home! I can just see dude waiting in his car, smoking, muttering “If you’re not back in ten minutes I’m going to give your suitcases away, asshole” in French.
[4] I know we’re in Greece and Celine’s French, but I’m gonna start using this phrase to refer to any tradition that oppresses marginalized groups and also makes no goddamn sense.
Author news (and a giveaway)
Please don’t think I’m only getting up in your inbox because I have something to sell again, but I have something to sell again! The Other Me comes out in paperback on August 2. Pre-order it here or anywhere books are sold.
To celebrate, I’m also giving away copies to three randomly chosen subscribers (one for each movie in the Before trilogy)! To enter, reply to this email with the answers to these questions:
What is your absolute favorite book/film/show/podcast/other media property that deals with alternate realities?
(VERY IMPORTANT) Will middle-aged Celine and Jesse break up, stay together, or break up then periodically get together for sparkling banter/hate sex?
Please reply by noon ET on July 31. U.S. subscribers only—sorry!
Also! I’m attending Bouchercon this year in Minneapolis from September 8-11 (barring disasters). I’ll be talking about bad romance on the “‘Til Death Do Us Part: Domestic Suspense” panel on Sunday morning at 9 with Mary Dixie Carter, Lynne Constantine, and Anastasia Zadeik, so if you’re going, stop in for that—or say hi to me in the bar.
Currently reading/watching/listening
The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
Ms. Marvel on Disney+ (I actually finished it, but I’m on deadline so I haven’t started anything else)
Paper Thin by Green/Blue
If you enjoy my ramblings, you might also like my book! NPR said The Other Me “resists categorization, blending the impossible with the probable with the downright plausible.”
Out now in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook, and in paperback August 2!
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