It has been 26 years since Before Sunrise was first released. I remember watching the movie for the first time around the early 2000s and it has been my favorite romance movie since then. The last time I had watched all three movies in the trilogy was back in 2014. The lock-down seemed like a great time to go back and revisit the trilogy and I have found that with time, my feelings and opinions about the movies have radically changed.
As I said Before Sunrise was my favourite movie of the whole trilogy. It was so romantic and intense and when I first watched Before Sunset, I was indignant that they were meeting after nine years!! Nine fucking years!! Back then nine years seemed like a really long time. I needed them to have met in six months. It had to have happened right? Otherwise, I was fine with them never meeting again. The one that got away – the concept was so romantic.
Before Sunrise
Before Sunrise is the most romantic movie of the trilogy. Two very good looking people who were checking each other out even before they talked and were undoubtedly attracted to each other. The best part about all three movies has always been watching Celine and Jesse talk.
At first glance, Jesse is the confident, handsome type – a sleek guy who never has problems getting attention from women. He is the type of guy who opted for a hardcover read as he is backpacking around Europe. “What are you reading?” Jesse asks Celine. I think this is such an important question to ask someone to get them to know a bit better.
Celine comes off as sort of low-key neurotic when she is uncomfortable like at the beginning of the movie. But as she feels comfortable enough, she just shines. And we definitely see a glimpse of the woman she is going to grow into. She is indignant about the unfairness in the world as a young person and she grows up into someone who is actively working to challenge that. This will always be her redeeming character.
The fact that the movie is set in a city that is foreign to both of them adds to the element of mystery and fairy tale to the movie. We see the couple getting to know each other as they go explore this beautiful European city, and you can just see how they are just drenched in this youthful optimism and this lust for life. They don’t know how their life is going to turn out and there is a degree of freedom in it. Anything might happen, they might end up anywhere. At its heart, the movie is about the yearning for connection that we all have and what it means when you find someone you truly connect to.
Re-watching the movie now, there were times when the dialogue in the movies felt sort of cringe-worthy, while there were dialogues that felt so genuine and heartfelt, most parts of the conversation was tinged with their eagerness to impress the other person. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean I cringe all the time thinking about things I did and believed when I was young.
Before Sunset
The ambiguity of the ending of Before Sunrise was just perfect. But at that time, it felt like the premise of the second movie just ruined it. And they are both different people now. The first time I watched the movie I was low key mad at Celine for not showing up even though it wasn’t her fault. The duo looks more normal, for the lack of a better word, in this movie. In the first movie, you couldn’t just keep your eyes off Celine, she was just too gorgeous. Same with Jesse. But here in this movie, they both look great, don’t get me wrong. But they look like people who you would see on the streets instead of looking like obvious film stars.
The fact that this movie existed had ruined my expectations for the couple had led me to be less than enthusiastic about the whole movie. But the characters were so charming and the dialogue was so good that I just had to warm up to the movie as it went on. It felt nice knowing what these characters turned out to be. And Jesse’s flight was the time bomb ticking throughout the movie that kept me on my toes and my heart just melted when Celine cooed at the end of the movie “Baby… you are gonna miss that plane” and Jesse replied, “I know.”
This movie is set in another beautiful European city, but the mystical and romantic element that Vienna – a city foreign to them both – provided in the first movie is not there. It’s great watching the chemistry between these two people and learn more about them as they continue their conversations.
But re-watching this movie as an adult, it somehow feels as much of a fantasy as the first film. After all that has been said and done, this movie is about rekindling the romance with the one that got away. Isn’t that something all of us have fantasized about one time or another?
Before Sunset shows how much regret the two characters carry within themselves. On the surface, they both have pretty good lives and have achieved a lot in terms of being who they set out to be. But they both carry a lot of regrets. They both miss who they used to be. The film showcases not just their pining for each other but for their past selves. They want to go back to the time when they were more hopeful, romantic, and real-life had not disillusioned them. The couple ending up together felt like an attempt for them to go back in time per se.
They both had yearned for each other through the past years and despite their cynical facade, seemed to be carrying a deep-set belief that things would have turned out better had they ended up together. So like the previous movie, this one ends in a what-if as well. We have just seen the couple spend a total of two days together so we don’t know what will happen to them if and when they get together.
Before Midnight
Before Midnight was the hardest of the series for me to watch. Honestly, revisiting the trilogy now, this is my favourite one but it is still hard to watch. This movie is the most grounded and based on reality out of the whole trilogy. Ethan Hawke had stated in an interview that, “The first film is about what could be, the second one is what should have been. The last one is about what it is.” Both actors have very gracefully aged as the time has gone by, and maybe because of their age, they look more relatable and sympathetic.
Even the setting for this movie is different. There are no chance meetings among strangers and that strips away the magic that the two previous movies encapsulated. What we get instead is a fair welcome of real life. In the previous two movies, it was just the two of them in centre, talking getting to know each other. While it certainly feels like that in the early moments when you are falling in love – most real love stories do not take place inside a bubble. So the bubble is burst in this one and we see these characters interact in a real-world environment with kids, friends, and work issues.
Back when the movie was released, I had hated what had become of them and I hated Celine for how she was acting throughout the movie. But re-watching it, I guess I get where they are going through. We have just caught them in one of their worst days and they have forgotten how to be kind to each other. What I didn’t get in the first watch was that they didn’t mean anything they said – they had just gotten very good at hurting each other.
This movie shows what other romantic movies don’t, that life doesn’t automatically become perfect even when you meet the one. Unlike the first two movies, the characters here know each other well by now and don’t have to put their best face forward. And that always happens in real life. We save our charm and niceties for people we meet outside of our personal life but have no problem showing our darker, imperfect side to people closest to us. This might not be fair to people who love us but we all do this to some extent without even being aware of it. All of us are imperfect in some ways or the other and our imperfection just echoes and magnifies as we spend more and more time with someone, making the same mistakes over and over again.
But while being a realistic movie, this is definitely not a nihilistic one. This movie does end on a positive note, it shows that despite having imperfections, despite having problems and going through tough times, the most important thing that matters in your relationship, is your willingness to work through it.
Jesse goes back to being this sweet sweet guy with his letter from the future. After all the time has passed, you get to see the guy with the grand gestures, the guy who walked a stranger to get off the train and spend the day with him. It grips at your heart when he tells Celine that her best years are ahead of her.
The trilogy has continued to celebrate romance in different periods throughout a relationship and a new addition to the series would certainly be welcome if the creators choose to do so.
