IMDb ??? Review: Before Sunset (2007)

Source: Wikipedia

Eighty minutes of conversation.

Two people talk for well over an hour. And I adored every minute.

Whoa.

A writer at a book signing in Paris reunites with the woman who inspired his runaway bestseller. Before he has to catch his plane, they catch up, walking and talking around picturesque Paris as the sun slowly sets, along with any likelihood of them ever meeting again.

The dialogue sparkles in shameless realness–sometimes choppy and awkward, then smooth and relaxed and funny again. It’s a lot of fun to watch. The topic wanders as much as the characters do: from bookshop to café to alley to ferry to taxi, from books to music to philanthropy to sex. (Yes, as grown-ups, they’re going to discuss the dirty deed. Frankly.)

These two can talk to each other about anything, and they do. I envy that feeling, even in my stable monogamous relationship with my word processor -- we’re currently floundering in the post-honeymoon phase, no longer able to impress each other but still attempting to regardless of results.

Back to the movie.

It’s an anti-romantic nuke. Despite the romantic subject matter (reunion of separated lovers), in the most romantic city in the world (Paris). It smacks of cold, hard reality, like a suicide jumper kissing the asphalt at terminal velocity.

Spoiler alert: the ending’s implications support my aforementioned suspicions about Parisian culture. (Infidelity. Everywhere.)

Recommended for hopeful romantics looking for love, hopeless romantics who found love and want out, and socially crippled rom-com characters who direly need lessons in the most rudimentary interpersonal communication.

80 minutes.