History Film / BeforeSunrise

''Before Sunrise'' is a romantic drama from 1995, and one of the early works of director Creator/RichardLinklater. It's notable for being a romance film that contains next to no LoveTropes (or at least, very few straight examples thereof), letting the romance develop through philosophical and increasingly intimate conversation. It stars Creator/EthanHawke as Jesse, an American tourist travelling to Vienna to catch his flight home, and Creator/JulieDelpy as Celine, a French university student on her way home to Paris. They meet briefly on the train and are just making a connection when the train arrives in Vienna and Jesse has to disembark. Not wanting to leave one another's company just yet, they decide to spend the day and night together, knowing that in the morning Jesse has to catch his flight and Celine has to get back on the train. They spend their time together exploring Vienna and talking about life, the universe and the dichotomy between relationships, love and sex, and all with the thought hanging over them of what will happen when morning comes.

It was followed in 2004 by a sequel, ''Before Sunset'', that reunited the director and stars and saw Hawke and Delpy co-write the screenplay with Linklater. Nine years have passed since the first film, and Jesse has immortalized the experience in a best-selling novel. While in Paris on the final leg of his book tour, he's reunited with Celine after she reads the book and comes to see his appearance at the Shakespeare & Company bookstore. They quickly reconnect, and even though Jesse only has a couple of hours before he needs to catch a flight home, they decide to kill time by wandering around Paris. Much like the previous meeting, their conversations are very philosophical and introspective, and they also take the opportunity to catch up on the last nine years of one another's lives and how they remember and feel about the events of the first film.

A third film, ''Before Midnight'', was released in 2013. Linklater directed a screenplay written by himself, Hawke and Delpy. The film is set in Greece, nine years after the events of ''Before Sunset''. Jesse and Celine are coming to the end of their summer stay in the villa of fellow author Patrick. Accompanying them are their twin daughters as well as Jesse's son Hank, whom Jesse walks to his stateside flight at the beginning of the movie. The movie follows the two as they converse with each other as well as with friends, trading stories and observations about life and love, and remembering events from the first films as well as from their lives since then.

!!All three films contain examples of the following:
* AmbiguousEnding: No film provides a definitive answer on where Jesse's and Celine's relationship will go.
* ExtremelyShortTimespan: All of them take place in under a day.
* ForeverFling: Jesse and Celine's relationship hinges entirely on having known each other for a single day.
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: All films in the trilogy are titled ''Before [Time of Day]''.
* MaybeEverAfter: All three films end on a hopeful note about Jesse and Celine's relationship, but major obstacles exist.
* NoAntagonist: Except for the pressure of how little time they have in the first two movies. [[spoiler: They do argue and antagonize each other heavily in the third, but still love each other.]]
* RealisticDictionIsUnrealistic: The flow of the dialogue is very naturalistic, as Jesse and Celine often talk over each other, interrupt themselves to say something else, there's a lot of "um"s and "eh"s and similar sounds, and you could make a drinking game out of how often they say "y'know".
* SeinfeldianConversation: The focus of the movies. The romance between Jesse and Celine is developed through their rambling conversations about stuff. The trolley scene in ''Before Sunrise'' is a particularly good example, as the two of them talk about things that bug them, their first sexual encounters, and reincarnation (among other things) all in the space of five minutes and [[TheOner one shot]].
* SpeechCentricWork: All three films are very conversation-centric.
* WalkAndTalk: Featured in all three films, though in different amounts.
* WomenAreWiser: Averted. Celine is just as philosophical, and sometimes just as fucked up, as Jesse.

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!!''Before Sunset'' contains examples of the following tropes:
-->'''Celine:''' ''(imitating Nina Simone)'' Baby, you are going to miss that plane.
-->'''Jesse:''' ... I know.
* BasedOnATrueStory:
** Unconfirmed. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy co-wrote the screenplay with Richard Linklater, and many critics suggested that (much like Linklater in the first film) the two actors put a lot of their own lives into their characters. For example, critics point to Jesse's monologues about his HappyMarriageCharade and compare them to Ethan Hawke's ended marriage to Creator/UmaThurman.
** In-universe, Jesse is pestered by literary journalists on whether his novel ''This Time'' was based on an actual meeting or not.
* CallBack: Jesse asks if Celine just "plugs in the name" when singing her waltz, much like he suggested the poet just "plugged in the word" in the first film.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: The opening credits play over a montage of locations that Jesse and Celine ''will'' visit during the film, but in reverse order, starting with [[spoiler:Celine's apartment]] and working backwards to Shakespeare & Company.
* ContinuityNod: Jesse brings up the entire "we're figments of an old lady's DyingDream" theory they brought up while in bed in ''WesternAnimation/WakingLife''.
* DidTheyOrDidntThey: The movie plays with the somewhat ambiguous SexyDiscretionShot from the previous film. Jesse insists that they did, while Celine insists that they didn't.
* GranolaGirl: Celine, sort of. She's an environmentalist, but doesn't have the usual perky attributes of a Granola Girl.
* HappyEndingOverride: A variation, due to the realist depiction of the characters and their lives. The romantic side of both characters has almost completely died in the intervening years, so rather than picking up where they left off, Jesse and Celine put up a pretense before revealing that they've completely messed up their love lives and don't know how to get them back on track.
* HappyMarriageCharade: Jesse confesses to having one of these.
* LegendaryInTheSequel: Again, a variation. Jesse is now a well-known author, and his latest best-selling work is based on the events of ''Before Sunrise'', meaning that Celine has been immortalised in print.
* MostWritersAreWriters: Jesse has written a novel, ''This Time'', inspired by his time with Celine, and the book has become an American bestseller.
%% * NoEnding
* RealTime: This film takes place in the hour-and-a-half following Jesse's appearance at the bookstore.
* SerenadeYourLover: ''Another'' variation. Jesse asks to hear one of Celine's songs, and out of the choice of a song about her cat, a song about her ex-boyfriend and "a waltz", he picks the latter. Naturally, it's a song she wrote about Jesse and the events of the first film.
* SpannerInTheWorks: After the two of them planned to meet romantically in the same place six months later in ''Before Sunrise'', life got in the way to prevent it; specifically, Celine couldn't show up because her grandmother died.
* WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis: Invoked by both Celine and Jesse: why the fuck didn't they exchange phone numbers, or even their last names? Because they were romantic ''twits'' in the first film and figured it would be more romantic, and didn't realize an emergency (like the death of Celine's grandmother) might intervene.
* WhatTheHellHero: Celine lets Jesse have it, big time.
-->'''Celine:''' I was fine, until I read your fucking book! It stirred shit up, you know? It reminded me how genuinely romantic I was, how I had so much hope in things, and now it's like, I don't believe in anything that relates to love. I don't feel things for people anymore. In a way, I put all my romanticism into that one night, and I was never able to feel all this again. Like, somehow this night took things away from me and I expressed them to you, and you took them with you! It made me feel cold, like if love wasn't for me!...
----

!!''Before Midnight'' contains examples of the following tropes:
* BelatedHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Jesse does manage to get together with Celine, and even start a family, but it's not without consequences.]]
* BumblingDad: Jesse comes across like this a little bit when saying goodbye to his son, but it is partly because he is trying so hard to make up for all the time he could not be there for him.
* DisappearedDad: Jesse is wracked with guilt over not being able to see his 13-year-old son, who lives in the US, often enough. He pines to return to Chicago, but his wife Celine has a new job opportunity in Paris, and doesn't want her or their two daughters to live in the US anyway. [[spoiler: This becomes a major point of contention in their big fight at the hotel.]]
* HappilyMarried: PlayedWith and explored throughout the movie. They still do have plenty of happy times, as shown at the beginning where they enjoy their holiday with kids and friends to the fullest and still flirt with each other. On the other hand, they both had to make sacrifices (like Jesse living in the U.S. and being there for his son, and Celine having more of a career and more time for herself) and also have had less and less opportunities to spend quality time with each other, [[spoiler: which lead to all kinds of unspoken resentments and regrets that are brought into the open in their night at the hotel.]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: [[spoiler: Despite both characters being cheaters themselves, they both angrily accuse of the other of cheating.]]
* TheOner: The drive back from the airport is one continuous shot, save for a brief cutaway. The walk to the hotel is another.
* ParentsAsPeople: Jesse and Celine are shown as flawed parents who try very hard and love their kids to bits but ultimately are flawed and imperfect at being parents. Celine later confesses how ashamed she was of being clueless as the mom of their daughters and making mistakes and how she felt she was supposed to be instinctual and a natural at this parenting thing. Also, Jesse totally steals a half-eaten apple from his sleeping daughter!
* RealTime: The film is basically four, five long scenes of conversation in RealTime, with some time passing between those scenes.
* SceneryPorn: Plenty of beautiful Greek houses, nature, and ocean.
* TrueLoveIsBoring: The routines of parenthood and domestic life have worn them both down noticeably.
* TruthTellingSession: [[spoiler: The big fight at the hotel where previously unsaid things are brought out into the open, mostly in a very confrontational and hurtful way due to how long their resentments and regrets have festered over the years. In this fight they alternate between driving each other away and talking cautious steps towards each other. Celine runs out three times, comes back two times and Jesse goes after her in the end where they decide to give it another try in the hotel.]]
* WalkAndTalk: When they walk to the hotel, and talk just the two of them for the first time in ages, they mention how much they have missed doing this.
* WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis: [[spoiler: If they had taken time out to talk to each other more often and been more honest and upfront with each other in general, they might have avoided collecting so many unspoken resentments and regrets over the years of their relationship.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: [[spoiler: Both throw a lot of this at each other in their huge fight in the hotel. Neither really comes off as more or less flawed than the other, though.]]

''Before Sunrise'' is a romantic drama from 1995, and one of the early works of director Creator/RichardLinklater. It's notable for being a romance film that contains next to no LoveTropes (or at least, very few straight examples of LoveTropes), letting the romance develop through philosophical and increasingly intimate conversation. It stars Creator/EthanHawke as Jesse, an American tourist travelling to Vienna to catch his flight home, and Creator/JulieDelpy as Celine, a French university student on her way home to Paris. They meet briefly on the train and are just making a connection when the train arrives in Vienna and Jesse has to disembark. Not wanting to leave one another's company just yet, they decide to spend the day and night together, knowing that in the morning Jesse has to catch his flight and Celine has to get back on the train. They spend their time together exploring Vienna and talking about life, the universe and the dichotomy between relationships, love and sex, and all with the thought hanging over them of what will happen when morning comes.

* WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis: Invoked by both Celine and Jesse: why the fuck didn't they exchange phone numbers? Because they were romantic ''twits'' in the first film and figured it would be more romantic, and didn't realize an emergency (like the death of Celine's grandmother) might intervene.

* RealityEnsues: After the two of them planned to meet romantically in the same place six months later in ''Before Sunrise'', life got in the way to prevent it; specifically, Celine couldn't show up because her grandmother died.

* YourCheatingHeart: [[spoiler: The film ends with both of the main characters cheating on their significant others with each other.]]

''Before Sunrise'' is a romantic drama from 1995, and one of the early works of director Creator/RichardLinklater. It's notable for being a romance film that contains next to no LoveTropes (or at least, very few straight examples of LoveTropes), letting the romance develop through philosophical and increasingly intimate conversation. It stars Creator/EthanHawke as Jesse, an American tourist travelling to Vienna to catch his flight home, and Julie Delpy as Celine, a French university student on her way home to Paris. They meet briefly on the train and are just making a connection when the train arrives in Vienna and Jesse has to disembark. Not wanting to leave one another's company just yet, they decide to spend the day and night together, knowing that in the morning Jesse has to catch his flight and Celine has to get back on the train. They spend their time together exploring Vienna and talking about life, the universe and the dichotomy between relationships, love and sex, and all with the thought hanging over them of what will happen when morning comes.

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

* BasedOnATrueStory: RichardLinklater once spent the night wandering around Philadelphia with a woman named Amy.

** Unconfirmed. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy co-wrote the screenplay with Richard Linklater, and many critics suggested that (much like Linklater in the first film) the two actors put a lot of their own lives into their characters. For example, critics point to Jesse's monologues about his HappyMarriageCharade and compare them to Ethan Hawke's ended marriage to UmaThurman.

** There are subtle references to ''{{Ulysses}}'' and Creator/JamesJoyce. Jesse and Celine's time together mirrors that of Joyce and his future wife's first outing, when they spent a day and night walking around and exploring Dublin. Both took place on the 16th of June (Bloomsday), which Joyce later made the date on which ''Ulysses'' was set. And both have scenes set in a cemetery where one character feels the pressure of their own mortality.

* FollowTheLeader: Follows in the footsteps of ''Film/MyDinnerWithAndre''.

* FollowTheLeader: Follows in the footsteps of ''MyDinnerWithAndre''.