Before Sunrise (1995)

Number 130 of all time on Letterboxd. One hundred and thirty. I need somebody to explain that to me, because I have just sat through Before Sunrise and I genuinely cannot fathom it. This is, without question, one of the most overrated films I have ever watched, and I watch a lot of films.

Let me be straight with you. This is one hundred minutes of two people wandering around Vienna having conversations that they seem to think are profound and that I found almost physically painful. Jesse and Celine treat every single thing they stumble across as though they've just witnessed the face of God. An older woman belly dancing? Astounding. Deeply moving. A bloke on the street who writes poems on demand for cash? A beautiful, transcendent encounter. I'm sitting there thinking, mate, that's just a Tuesday. Stop looking at each other like you've unlocked the secrets of the universe because you watched a busker.

And the conversations themselves. Where do I even start? They meander through every topic imaginable, philosophy, relationships, life, death, the cosmos, and somehow manage to say absolutely nothing interesting about any of them. It's the kind of chat that a nineteen-year-old thinks sounds incredibly deep at half eleven on a Wednesday night, but that doesn't hold up to any real scrutiny. I kept waiting for a moment that landed, something that felt honest or surprising or genuinely human, and it never came. It just kept going. And going.

Ethan Hawke, who I know can act because I've seen him be genuinely compelling elsewhere, is thoroughly unlikeable here. Jesse is smug, he's self-satisfied, and he delivers every line as though he's expecting a round of applause for having thought of it. There's a particular kind of annoying that comes from a character who thinks he's fascinating, and Jesse has it in spades. Julie Delpy fares slightly better, but she's working uphill the entire time because the material just isn't there.

Look, I know what people see in this. I understand the appeal of the idea. Two strangers, one night, a beautiful European city, a connection that feels rare and fleeting. That's a lovely premise on paper. The problem is that the execution mistakes pretension for poetry. These aren't two interesting people having a real conversation. They're two screenwriter's ideas of interesting people performing at each other for the camera. Nothing they say feels like something a real human being would actually say in that situation.

Here's the thing that really stings. As part of my A-Z World Movie Tour, Austria gave me this. And on the very same tour, I watched Love in Aruba, a made-for-TV romance that by every measure of prestige and cultural standing sits far below Before Sunrise. And I enjoyed Love in Aruba more. A made-for-TV movie with a fraction of the budget, the reputation, or the critical pedigree gave me more genuine warmth and entertainment than this widely celebrated piece of supposed cinema. That should tell you everything you need to know about where I'm landing on this one.

I've tried to work out whether I'm missing something. Whether there's a generational thing, a personal taste thing, a you-had-to-see-it-at-the-right-moment-in-your-life thing. Maybe if I'd watched this at eighteen it would have spoken to me differently. But I doubt it. Even at eighteen I think I would have found Jesse insufferable, and I think I would have wanted the belly dancing scene to be followed by literally anything other than the two leads staring at each other in quiet wonder.

One star. Genuinely not for me. If you love it, I'm happy for you, but I'll need a very long explanation over a very large drink before I'm ready to revisit Vienna with these two.

Rating: ★  | Year: 1995  | Watched: 2025-05-26

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