The Frame

In one sense it was very nice to be able to spend more time with Hawke and Delpy’s characters from Before Sunrise. Nine years after they parted in Vienna (and failed to keep their date to meet up again a year later), they run into each other in Paris and wonder if this is their second chance. Again, it’s a long conversation…but this time, instead of having all night, they have only 80 minutes before his plane leaves, and the film plays out nearly in real time. There are a lot of lovely touches here, as in the first film, yet I’m not sure the loss of the ambiguity left by Before Sunrise is worth what we get in Before Sunset. I still enjoyed the film, and both writing and acting are every bit as wonderful as in the earlier film, it just seems a bit…pointless. But not the “I wish I’d never wasted my time on that dreck” sort of pointless; rather, the “I’m glad I saw that, but I think I’ll continue to think about the first one as a standalone film if you don’t mind” sort. Rather like the director’s cut of Cinema Paradiso.
Above Average