This is not a movie review. This is a declaration of love.
Richard Linklater’s much underrated 1995 feature, Before Sunrise, is the best romantic comedy ever.
Yes, ever.
The plot is simple enough. Ethan Hawke is Jesse, a 20 something American about to end his European holiday and fly to his home town in Texas. Julie Delpy is Celine, a young woman of a similar age from France. They meet on a train, and form a connection that is sufficiently interesting to Celine to cause her to get off the train in Vienna and spend the night walking around and talking to Jesse.
A year earlier, Ethan Hawke made me want to never watch movies again with his awful role in Reality Bites. Don’t even get me started on what the hell Janeane Garufalo thought she was doing being in that stinker, or we’ll be here all day, but the point is that Ethan’s character in that particularly bad movie seemed designed to embody all the absolute worst clichés about young people at the time (otherwise known as ‘people my age’). The character was educated but dumb in every way that mattered, shallow, annoying, self centred and utterly unlikeable.
I was greatly relieved to discover that Ethan’s character in Before Sunrise was everything his Reality Bites character was not: sensitive, articulate, emotionally intelligent, and insecure but in an endearing way. And Julie Delpy as Celine was, without wishing to overstate the case, freaking awesome, portraying a character who was naïve on many levels and yet wise beyond her years in every way that mattered, not to mention being more than a match for Jesse intellectually and emotionally.
I first saw this movie some time in 1996, when it came out on video. I have no idea, given how much I hated romantic comedies at the time, how on earth I came to hire this film, but I did.
I was 23 years old, I had never been in a relationship that was anything other than very short and very bad, I hadn’t even been on a date in, quite literally, five years, and I had pretty well given up on the whole notion that romance could ever happen to me. I had grave doubts as to whether a relationship could ever be anything other than a series of battles for control leading inevitably to dissatisfaction at best and painful separation at worst.
It is not surprising that I was utterly blown away by the scene where Jesse and Celine share their first kiss, in the pretty close to perfect setting of Vienna’s giant ferris wheel at sunset. This was not just because I really wanted to be Ethan Hawke at that moment, but because it was such an honest portrayal of two people finding and expressing a deep and true connection.
Eleven years later, and after six happy years of marriage, those post adolescent insecurities are a distant memory, but I still love this film. Partly it’s because of the dialogue and the fine acting. Partly it’s because the managed to fit a poem in without it seeming out of place, which is pretty impressive when the poem went like this:
Daydream delusion, limousine eyelash / Oh baby with your pretty face / Drop a tear in my wineglass / Look at those big eyes / See what you mean to me / Sweet-cakes and milkshakes / I'm a delusion angel / I'm a fantasy parade / I want you to know what I think / Don't want you to guess anymore / You have no idea where I came from / We have no idea where we're going / Lodged in life / Like branches in a river/ Flowing downstream / Caught in the current / I carry you / You'll carry me / That's how it could be / Don't you know me? / Don't you know me by now?
But, more than anything, it’s for a scene where Jesse and Celine get to discussing what really matters to them, and Celine says this:
I believe if there's any kind of god it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.
Sure, Celine and I have a few theological differences that we would have to work through if I was single and she wasn’t a fictional character, but the idea that what really matters is found in the connections we form with each other has never been better stated in any film, or anywhere else really. If a good film is one that inspires, that challenges, that pushes us to be better than we are, rather than one where lots of stuff blows up, then this is, I maintain, the best film ever made.
Rating: Every star that has ever graced the heavens, plus a few more.
Richard Linklater’s much underrated 1995 feature, Before Sunrise, is the best romantic comedy ever.
Yes, ever.
The plot is simple enough. Ethan Hawke is Jesse, a 20 something American about to end his European holiday and fly to his home town in Texas. Julie Delpy is Celine, a young woman of a similar age from France. They meet on a train, and form a connection that is sufficiently interesting to Celine to cause her to get off the train in Vienna and spend the night walking around and talking to Jesse.
A year earlier, Ethan Hawke made me want to never watch movies again with his awful role in Reality Bites. Don’t even get me started on what the hell Janeane Garufalo thought she was doing being in that stinker, or we’ll be here all day, but the point is that Ethan’s character in that particularly bad movie seemed designed to embody all the absolute worst clichés about young people at the time (otherwise known as ‘people my age’). The character was educated but dumb in every way that mattered, shallow, annoying, self centred and utterly unlikeable.
I was greatly relieved to discover that Ethan’s character in Before Sunrise was everything his Reality Bites character was not: sensitive, articulate, emotionally intelligent, and insecure but in an endearing way. And Julie Delpy as Celine was, without wishing to overstate the case, freaking awesome, portraying a character who was naïve on many levels and yet wise beyond her years in every way that mattered, not to mention being more than a match for Jesse intellectually and emotionally.
I first saw this movie some time in 1996, when it came out on video. I have no idea, given how much I hated romantic comedies at the time, how on earth I came to hire this film, but I did.
I was 23 years old, I had never been in a relationship that was anything other than very short and very bad, I hadn’t even been on a date in, quite literally, five years, and I had pretty well given up on the whole notion that romance could ever happen to me. I had grave doubts as to whether a relationship could ever be anything other than a series of battles for control leading inevitably to dissatisfaction at best and painful separation at worst.
It is not surprising that I was utterly blown away by the scene where Jesse and Celine share their first kiss, in the pretty close to perfect setting of Vienna’s giant ferris wheel at sunset. This was not just because I really wanted to be Ethan Hawke at that moment, but because it was such an honest portrayal of two people finding and expressing a deep and true connection.
Eleven years later, and after six happy years of marriage, those post adolescent insecurities are a distant memory, but I still love this film. Partly it’s because of the dialogue and the fine acting. Partly it’s because the managed to fit a poem in without it seeming out of place, which is pretty impressive when the poem went like this:
Daydream delusion, limousine eyelash / Oh baby with your pretty face / Drop a tear in my wineglass / Look at those big eyes / See what you mean to me / Sweet-cakes and milkshakes / I'm a delusion angel / I'm a fantasy parade / I want you to know what I think / Don't want you to guess anymore / You have no idea where I came from / We have no idea where we're going / Lodged in life / Like branches in a river/ Flowing downstream / Caught in the current / I carry you / You'll carry me / That's how it could be / Don't you know me? / Don't you know me by now?
But, more than anything, it’s for a scene where Jesse and Celine get to discussing what really matters to them, and Celine says this:
I believe if there's any kind of god it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.
Sure, Celine and I have a few theological differences that we would have to work through if I was single and she wasn’t a fictional character, but the idea that what really matters is found in the connections we form with each other has never been better stated in any film, or anywhere else really. If a good film is one that inspires, that challenges, that pushes us to be better than we are, rather than one where lots of stuff blows up, then this is, I maintain, the best film ever made.
Rating: Every star that has ever graced the heavens, plus a few more.
5 comments:
But did you like it?
That's a whole lot of stars, INC! I don't know how I've managed not to see this film. I will rush out and borrow it immediately.
I have never even heard of this movie, INC! But I am so excited you blogged about it - as the best romantic comedy ever is a big claim.
I think the writers of Love Actually may now actually hate you.
Ah, such a beautiful romantic movie. Miles more romantic than Love Actually, although that's a great movie in its own way!
I too hated Ethan Hawke after 'Reality Bites'.
I have Never. Gotten. Over. That.
I love Before Sunrise with a passion. I didn't have the balls to call it the greatest romantic comedy ever, but now that you did, I heartily agree.
I also enjoyed the followup "Before Sunset". A very different film, touching so beautifully on how different we become with age, but not losing the spirit of the original.
Great stuff. Thanks for reminding me!
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