Memory Is a Wonderful Thing Tee

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Before Sunset (2004) is the second entry in Linklater's Before trilogy, a series of films about the long love affair carried out by Jesse and Céline, played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

Hawke's Jesse disarms Céline in the first film by being a brash, but self-aware, American abroad. In the second film, the two revisit their beautiful night together in Vienna from the first. Jesse is a famous author. His new book is a fictionalized recreation of the night he spent with Céline in the first film of the series (Before Sunrise, 1995).  Céline has become a climate activist but makes time to see Jesse's book tour when it comes through Paris.

The two discuss their lives and their various disappointments. The instances where reality gets in the way of dreaming. The long "will-they-won't-they" storyline points to a "they will" as the movie ends with Jesse missing his plane back to America to live out his dream.

Sunset opens nine years later in a Paris bookshop, where Jesse is performing a reading of his new novel, a fictionalization of that memorable night. When Céline shows up near the end of the reading, the truncated romance is rekindled, and the two wander the streets of Paris, discussing their lives, loves, memories, disappointments, and dreams. Like the first film, nothing much ‘happens’ beyond this and, like the first film, this ‘nothing’ is Before Sunset’s major strength. It takes our conventional attention to ‘plot’ and ‘dramatic action’ and refocuses it on a conversation, tied together by a shared memory, and fused simply by an almost Aristotelian unity of place, time, and purpose. 

Once again they spent some time walking and talking. Celine eventually revealed that she wasn’t just at Shakespeare and Company by chance – she had read his book, and seen his upcoming talk advertised on a poster. Jesse, wearing a wedding ring, eventually confessed that his marriage was falling apart; that he loved his four-year-old son Hank, but didn’t know if this was enough of a reason to stay with his wife. Later, he admitted to Celine of his book, “I wrote it in a way to try and find you.”

Once again, Celine and Jesse’s time together was punctuated by Jesse’s need to catch a plane back home. But they made the most of the minutes they had – overly formal and a little nervous at first, but finally open and vulnerable. Time stretched out, questions were answered, misgivings aired, a flame rekindled. Finally, in Celine’s apartment, as the sun prepared to set on the day, it became clear that Jesse would miss his plane. “I know,” he confirmed.