Richard Linklater created the famous “Before” trilogy: 1995's “Before Sunrise,” 2004’s “Before Sunset” and 2013's “Before Midnight.” The success of the “Before” franchise is rooted in the concept that love will always sell — just in time for Valentine's Day!
In “Before Sunrise,” a man named Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meets a French girl named Celine (Julie Delpy) on a train heading toward Vienna. They immediately hit it off and Jesse asks Celine for her to spend the night with him roaming the city because he has no money for lodging and his flight back to the States is the next morning. The movie ends with the couple choosing a date in six months to reunite at the train station in Vienna, leaving audiences wondering if they will ever see each other again. If you are a romantic you would like to think they stuck to their promise and saw each other to rekindle their love, and if you are cynical, then you will claim they never reunite, leaving that night to be one of lust.
In the second movie, Jesse and Celine reunite after nine years and a lot of change. Jesse is traveling in Paris to promote his new book about a summer fling with a French girl that ends ambiguously. We learn that six months after the first film Jesse tried to see Celine in Vienna, where she was nowhere to be found because she was at her grandmother’s funeral. Celine sought him out at his book signing where they spent the whole day together waiting for his flight back home to the United States. SPOILER: he did not get on his flight back home.
The chemistry between these two is painfully obvious, but so is the wedding ring on Jesse’s left hand. Yes, Jesse is married and has a son, although he so clearly wants to be with Celine. The film answers how this can be, asserting that love’s biggest enemy is time.
Another tragedy is that Vienna wasn't the only time Jesse and Celine missed each other. Jesse opens up about the problems in his marriage and shares that on the day of the wedding all he could think about was Celine. At this point, the real victim is Jesse's unnamed wife. Furthermore, he swears that he saw her entering a deli when he was driving to his wedding, and she shares that she lived on the same street in New York City, implying that it truly could’ve been her. The “Before” trilogy presents two people who share an undying connection and cannot leave each other but are doomed to keep missing each other.
The third film of the franchise starts off with Jesse saying goodbye to his son at the airport as he flies back to the United States to be with his mother. His son is torn between his mother and father, because his dad has remarried with Celine, having two daughters with her who live in Europe. Jesse and Celine finally get together, facing new challenges of raising a son between the United States and France. One of those obstacles is their fear that their relationship was a mistake. What makes the “Before” movies so successful is that these characters feel like real people who journey through the genuine unpredictability and fickleness of life.
Was it destiny that brought them together or was their timing just convenient? That depends on whether you’re a romantic or a cynic.
