Before Sunset review

In 1995 Richard Linklater made Before Sunrise, a romance which saw Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as a young American and French girl respectively, who meet on a train in Austria and spend a memorable day in Vienna. After having the briefest of holiday romances - including an alfresco under-the-stars sex session - the two go their separate ways, promising to meet again six months later. The film has become something of a long-term sleeper over the years, and a growing army of fans have wondered what exactly happened to Jesse and Celine. Now, in the follow-up movie, with the same actors reprising the same roles, it's our chance to find out.

Jesse (Hawke) is back in Paris, and as a successful novelist he is giving a reading from his latest book to a group of eager French journalists. Celine (Delpy) appears at the end of the reading, the two are reunited and go for a coffee to catch up on what has happened in the intervening years. After which they go for a long walk, take a short cruise on the Seine and have a fateful taxi ride before Jesse has to return to the airport to catch his plane.

It's a fascinating prospect, to reprise the same characters some years later, and it's not the only unusual thing about the film. Shot in extremely long takes, it forms a more-or-less real time account of the two lovers' meeting. Extraordinary tracking shots follow them through beautiful French parks and the natural dialogue of the two is utterly convincing. Jesse now has a functional if unsatisfying marriage and a child, while Celine is a committed activist, working on various environmentalist projects. What becomes clear is that the light which was ignited between the two nine years before never went out completely, and fans will find out whether or not they did meet in Vienna as planned.

But there's plenty for novices to enjoy too. If at first both characters seem a little self-involved, their barriers soon break down and while it may initially appear a very wordy film, both of them reveal enough of their weaknesses and emotions for each other to make audiences both old and new fall in love with them - either for the first or second time.

Written collectively by Linklater, Hawke and Delpy, this is a slow-burning surprise, with an ending that will leave audiences with a smile on their faces as they leave the cinema. It's a refreshing change from the usual Hollywood fare, and the natural style of both performers recalls the work of Eric Rohmer. Fans of the first film will be delighted, converts to the second will rush out to rent the original. And both groups will hope for a third film to come along to catch up with this delightful duo in another five or ten years' time.