Prior to watching Before Sunset (2004), I had no idea that it is the middle leg of a cinematic trilogy, all of them directed by Richard Linklater.  Shame on me, I guess.  How can I call myself knowledgeable about film if I did not know such things.  Then again, it does give me two more movies to watch, so I will call this a win.  The only reason I did more digging on the subject is because I am of two minds after viewing it.  On the one hand, I grew frustrated watching it because it has no plot.  It is about Céline (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meeting each other again after ten years of no contact.  I will get into more detail about this in a moment.  Anyway, after their encounter, they go on to have an hour-long conversation and then the end credits start rolling.  Despite this, I was touched, and got a lot of material to which to apply my Catholic energies.  It also helped that it was set in Paris.

It is Before Sunset and Jesse, a writer with a best-selling novel, is doing a book signing in Paris.  Reporters are gathered around asking questions, each one seeming to remind him of moments with Céline.  She is clearly his muse, though he mostly dodges the queries that might make her real.  And yet, towards the end of the media scrum, he looks over to right and there she is among the shelves, smiling at him.  He is due to be on an airplane that night to return to the United States, and his manager (Vernon Dobtcheff) admonishes Jesse to make sure that he is on it.  Still, Jesse asks Céline if they can go get a coffee, promising that he will make it to the airport on time.  I am not going to cover every last bit of their conversation.  It is stream of conscious stuff, and it would be impossible and tedious to discuss it all.  There are some themes, however, which will allow me to give you the highlights.  The first is where each of them has been for the last ten years.  Like other young lovers before them, they forgot to exchange contact information before they last parted.  They did have an agreement, though, to reunite in Vienna.  Yet, Céline’s grandmother died, and she was unable to be there at the appointed date.  At first, Jesse denies that he had gone, but eventually admits that he did.  He also tells her that he put up signs in the train station, but nothing came of these efforts other than odd phone calls.  Later, he will wonder what their lives could have been like had they stuck to their plan.  Instead, he went on to get married and have a son.  She went to school for a time in New York City, during a period of years in which he had lived there, but they had no knowledge of each other’s whereabouts.  She had remained unmarried, though is currently dating a photojournalist who is often away covering stories.  This fits with her own work as an environmental activist.  This also feeds into another theme, and this is each of them talking about the nature of their current lives.  It starts in a casual way with him making a comment about how things are not so bad, and her angrily listing off a number of issues threatening the stability of the world.  It eventually turns personal as they reflect on their experiences over the past decade.  What becomes apparent is that neither one of them are satisfied with their lives, and the main reason is their unfulfilled relationship.  This is clear in Jesse’s book, and in the string of one-night stands and other boyfriends had by Céline.  While one can say that what they previously had was also a fling, it meant more to them than they could admit, except to each other.  He adds weight to this notion when he admits that he is not satisfied with his marriage.  He loves his son, but there is little love with his wife.  The last theme, though it is kind of silly to call it such, is Jesse continuing to make excuses to keep talking to Céline.  At several moments, she reminds him about the fact that he needs to make his flight, but he always says that there is still time.  He remains steadfast in wanting to keep things going by offering her a ride home in the car that is meant to take him to the airport.  This gives her the opportunity to vent about how she is upset that he had a seemingly perfect life since they parted, whereas she has been miserable.  He calms her down by talking about the issues he has with his marriage.  When they get to her apartment, he walks her to her door, and she invites him up for a cup of tea.  He insists that she play a song for him, and there is some other banter.  Finally, they discuss Nina Simone’s music, and the film ends with her telling him that he is going to miss his plane.

That is actually how Before Sunset concludes.  Luckily, it is about an hour and fifteen minutes long, so the endless dialog is bearable.  There is only about a minute or two where there is a breather from the conversation.  Because of its relative brevity, I can unpack it a little easier.  The first item to be addressed from the Catholic perspective is the constant return to the topic of sex.  Whatever it is that happened between them in the previous movie, Before Sunrise (1995), it is what modern society would call a one-night stand.  What seems obvious to me in Before Sunset, especially given how dissatisfied they seem to be with their lives, is that these flings are not good for them.  One can say this about their own shared experience, which left them wanting more.  If you have read other reviews of mine, you have probably seen me talk about how the Church elevates these activities by recommending that they stay between a married man and woman because of the procreative nature of the act.  The marriage bed is a place where people can be a part of something bigger than themselves, making everything else selfish.  Yet, Céline and Jesse also address the topic of God.  They have some bad and good things to say on the topic.  I was amazed when he shared about how he had spent some time with Cistercian monks.  He went into it expecting them to be stern people, but was surprised to find how much they enjoyed their lives.  I wish more people would realize this about the religious life.  Unfortunately, they come short of saying that they believe in God, with Céline flat out denying His existence.  Yet, a little while later they are discussing how they want to believe in something magical.  There is a contradiction of terms here, which goes beyond the idea of not wanting to connect God with the mystical.  The way they talk about sex, they put as much importance into it as a Christian might on faith.  It is a sad symptom of the backwardness of society.  God is real, and what we do in the bedroom, in the right context, can bring us closer to Him.  All the longing that you hear from these two characters is a testament to this fact.

I certainly felt their longing while watching Before Sunset.  I did not expect this, particularly since I grew frustrated with the seemingly endless dialog.  There are also parts of this that spoke to me on a personal level, especially my romantic side.  It is because of this that I give this a cautious recommendation.  It can be tedious, but it is interesting.