the fresh films reviews

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Before Sunrise (1995)

Director:
Richard Linklater
COUNTRY
USA/Austria/Switzerland
GENRE
Drama/Romance
NORWEGIAN TITLE
Før soloppgang
RUNNING TIME
101 minutes
Producer:
Anne Walker-McBay
Screenwriter:
Richard Linklater
Kim Krizan


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Jesse Wallace Ethan Hawke ½
Céline Julie Delpy
Palm reader Erni Mangold
Street poet Dominik Castell

 

Review

Simplistic and by design timeless romantic drama about an American man and a French woman, both in their early 20s, who meet by chance on a train from Budapest to Paris and decide to get off in Vienna to spend one evening and night getting to know each other. Director Richard Linklater may not have a naïve outlook on love and life, but his film is definitely a proponent for purity as his two protagonists wander around Vienna talking about life in general – often with a hint of existentialism – and now and then bump into various odd characters around the town. The film's simplistic form is both its strength and restriction, since it makes so much rely on the quality of the dialogue and acting. And Hawke and Delpy manage to get an earnestness across, complete with real-life insecurities and clumsiness, that elevates Before Sunrise above the run-of-the-mill romantic drama. Still, Linklater's writing has its moments of tackiness, and the film, for all its proposed ingenuity and truthfulness, feels a little too much like Brief Encounter's no. 1 fan to be a really authentic representative for Generation X.

Copyright © 7.9.2014 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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