Traeger. Yes?

Some Thoughts on Before Sunrise/Before Sunset & The Nature of Romantic Movies

I get why people think romance movies are cheesy & overwrought with melodrama. In fact, I’d say a good chunk of wide-release romance movies today are very cheesy. By nature, romance movies are there to show the open vein that is human love/lust/heartbreak/betrayal. When romance movies excel is when they shed light on these emotions & portray them in a way that is true to what we go through & how we act when we fall in love with someone. When romance movies fail is when they take those same emotions & play them in the broadest, cheesiest way possible & stray far from anything true in favor of the same plot points & beats that habitat every Nicholas Sparks novel (first they meet, then they fall in love, then a problem happens, then they’re in love again. THE END.) It’s truly rare nowadays that a film strays away from that tried-&-true formula. When a romance film captures that true feeling of being in love & all the messiness that comes with it, it’s something to be celebrated. BEFORE SUNRISE & BEFORE SUNSET are two such movies.

BEFORE SUNRISE & BEFORE SUNSET, for those who don’t know, are two parts of a trilogy following two characters, Jessie & Celine (played wonderfully by Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy, respectively) as they first meet in Vienna & how their relationship develops. Each movie takes place nine years apart from the last, following these characters & how their lives have changed since they first met. Both movies were directed by Richard Linklater, who you may know as the director of A SCANNER DARKLY, DAZED & CONFUSED, SLACKER, etc.

In BEFORE SUNRISE, you see Jessie & Celine wandering around in Vienna after meeting on a train, slowly falling in love over the course of one night. It sounds cheesy right off the bat, but BEFORE SUNRISE is less interested in seeing these two characters living happily ever after & more concerned about showing what young love truly looks like. Young love is awkward & sloppy. It’s trying to impress the other person with your pseudo-intellectual ramblings about modern poetry & philosophy. Most of all, it’s deeply insecure & vulnerable. As we watch these two characters falling in love, we also see them fumbling to be impressive to the other. This is a particular kind of love that happens with two people who haven’t been on Earth long enough to fully understand themselves, let alone someone else. This love is also highly idealistic. At the end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT FOR AN 18 YEAR OLD MOVIE) Jessie & Celine go their separate ways, but not before hastily agreeing to meet up in the same place in six months’ time. A romantic scenario if there ever was one.

BEFORE SUNSET takes place nine years after BEFORE SUNRISE. This time we see Jessie, who has written a novel about that romantic evening, doing a book tour in Paris. Celine meets him there by surprise. We find out they did not end up meeting up six months later & that both of them are in committed relationships, serious careers, etc. Life has caught up to Jessie & Celine. They decide to spend an afternoon in Paris before Jessie has to leave. Throughout the movie, the tone is a lot more adult. These characters have since grown up to realize the world is a bit more unforgiving than they originally thought. Unrequited loves gives way to comfortable compromise. During the beginning of the movie, they trade pleasantries & generally treat each other as friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time. As the movie progresses, they seem to long for the idealistic love they once had & begin to be much more honest about their disappointments in life. Both Jessie & Celine seem quite unhappy with how their life apart from each other has turned out. There’s a yearning for that free, sloppy, ignorant love of their youth. I won’t spoil BEFORE SUNSET, but I can say with confidence that it’s probably the best ending to a romance movie I’ve ever seen. It’s an ending that’s true to the characters & executed perfectly.

On May 24^th, BEFORE MIDNIGHT comes to theaters in limited release. Word from early screenings is that it’s the best of the trilogy. Personally, I can’t wait to see how this story ends, even if it’s sad. The arc of Jessie & Celine is near perfect & absolutely trounces the shoddy, troublesome love story of, say, Bella & Edward/Jacob from the Twilight series. This is what love looks like. It’s problematic & shapes our perception of the world around us, sometimes to a fault, & when it ends, it feels like the whole world has ended. It’s wonderful & shitty at the same time. Richard Linklater’s BEFORE SUNRISE & BEFORE SUNET is the perfect examination of love. And unless I haven’t made it clear, I’m so stoked for BEFORE MIDNIGHT.