Before Sunrise

Rolling Stone - 02/23/1995
"...Finally, a date movie that gets it right....A sharp, sexy, funny romance with a radical core of intelligence that catches the fever and fleetingness of love..."

USA Today - 01/27/1995
"...Touchingly tender..."

Entertainment Weekly - 01/27/1995
"...[Linklater] is working without a net here....[BEFORE SUNRISE] render[s] visible the magical air pocket of intimacy..." -- Rating: A-

Variety - 01/23/1995
"...A lovely, rather risky concept....Delpy's Celine is a beautiful creation..."

New York Times - 01/27/1995
"...An intoxicatingly romantic idea....BEFORE SUNRISE taps into something universal..."

Sight and Sound - 04/01/1995
"...Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy both respond to the looseness of Linklater's approach with their most engaging performances to date..."

Los Angeles Times - 01/27/1995
"...[Linklater] captures the thrill of chance encounters....A romantic comedy about the erotic appeal of nationality..."

Chicago Sun-Times - 01/27/1995
"...[The film is] about two nice kids, literate, sensitive, tentative, intoxicated by the fact that their lives stretch out before them, filled with mystery and hope, and maybe love....It is an ideal film for teenagers..."

When a young American (Ethan Hawke) traveling through Europe by train meets a beautiful French student (Julie Delpy), he convinces her to spend the day with him in Vienna so the two can get to know each other better. They spend their day exploring the city and before they know it, they find themselves falling in love. Richard Linklater's romantic daydream is a warm and witty comedy that uses the beautiful streets of Vienna as a perfect backdrop for the characters' youthful, budding romance.

Director Richard Linklater continues his streak of films that take place over the course of one day (after SLACKER and DAZED AND CONFUSED) with this romantic tale of two twenty-somethings who meet each other on a train headed to Vienna. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is a self-involved American with a Eurorail pass, and Celine (Julie Delpy) is a beautiful French student who is headed back to Paris. After spending time getting to know each other in the lounge car, Jesse takes the plunge and asks Celine to spend the day with him in Vienna, since his plane doesn't leave for the States until the next morning. She consents, and the couple spends the next 24 hours walking the gorgeous streets of Vienna, becoming even closer as they share stories from their pasts and hopes for their futures.

Linklater and Kim Krizan's script unfolds at a leisurely pace, giving the characters' bond time to develop more deeply and much more genuinely than in other films of this genre. By the time their rendezvous has ended, their realization--that this wasn't simply a one-night fling--triggers them into making a bold declaration. Hawke and Delpy's attractive presences combine with a lush background to produce a romance that is genuine and lasting.

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