Ok, ok. It's haunting me. I have to say something about Before Sunrise (Linklater, 1995). One of my girlfriends loves this movie so I guess I was expecting good things. "When Harry Met Sally" is her favorite movie, so I should not have been surprised at the nature of this movie. However, even though WHMS is cheesy and frequently eye roll-prompting, I found quite a few things to love about it. Not the case here. First, Ethan Hawke is gross in this movie. He looks gross, he acts like an asshole, his character is an idiot, annoying, and ignorant. I just can NOT see Julie Delpy's character falling for him. Of course, countless beautiful, intelligent, kind, awesome women have put up with less, especially when they are 23, so I guess that in and of itself is not surprising, but still. Also, the chemistry between the two actors was all off. At the beginning it didn't seem as if they were strangers--they were a little too close to each other and a little too comfortable. However, it wasn't like when you meet someone and want to talk all night or something--it was just... stilted seeming. Contrived. Unconvincing. I did like one scene--the one in the record store where they are in the listening booth and both want to kiss but are too shy. That was the one scene in the movie where I truly believed. It was almost as if it was filmed the first day the actors met and the director told them, "Ok, Ethan Hawke, meet Julie Delpy, Julie Delpy, meet Ethan Hawke. Now both of you get in this tiny room, listen to this record and pretend you like it even though it really sucks and is totally cheesy, and act like you want to kiss each other but are too nervous." Then once they had gone through that they had a connection, but since they (in this pretend world) filmed the beginning afterwards, it was unconvincing because they had already shared that moment.
Getting back to the first problem I mentioned and relevant to the comment below (in the Roll Bounce review), this movie was pretty painful to watch also because it reminded me of a really crappy time in my life, where I was depressed and painfully insecure, and therefore dated a bunch of losery jerks and felt lucky to do so. Watching it I wanted to be like, "Julie Delpy, you are WAY too good for him! Don't be sad that you won't see him again. You will find someone totally awesome when you grow up and realize your own awesomeness. Please don't waste your time with him. If you spend time with him you will realize what a douchebag he is, but if you don't get off the train, he won't be given the chance to ruin it and it will always be a sweet romantic 'what if?' memory." Maybe that's colored by my own issues/history, but this is my review, so I reserve the right to color it. :-) Interestingly, Ethan Hawke convinces Julie Delpy to get off the train with him by arguing that if she doesn't, she will always wonder "what if?" I say, sometimes it's better to hang on to the fantasy. I notice that I have conflated the actors with the characters in this review. I can't remember the character names and don't care to look. Let's see, right: Jesse and Celine. Blegh. I'll leave it to you to guess which one was which. I also think the fact that I recently saw Julie Delpy (with Adam Goldberg) in 2 Days in Paris, which I slightly more (again, probably because of my own neuroses), has tainted my review a bit. It was also about a French girl walking around a European city with an American guy. But I'm sticking with it. The ferris wheel was neat, though.
Ok, ok. It's haunting me. I have to say something about Before Sunrise (Linklater, 1995). One of my girlfriends loves this movie so I guess I was expecting good things. "When Harry Met Sally" is her favorite movie, so I should not have been surprised at the nature of this movie. However, even though WHMS is cheesy and frequently eye roll-prompting, I found quite a few things to love about it. Not the case here. First, Ethan Hawke is gross in this movie. He looks gross, he acts like an asshole, his character is an idiot, annoying, and ignorant. I just can NOT see Julie Delpy's character falling for him. Of course, countless beautiful, intelligent, kind, awesome women have put up with less, especially when they are 23, so I guess that in and of itself is not surprising, but still. Also, the chemistry between the two actors was all off. At the beginning it didn't seem as if they were strangers--they were a little too close to each other and a little too comfortable. However, it wasn't like when you meet someone and want to talk all night or something--it was just... stilted seeming. Contrived. Unconvincing. I did like one scene--the one in the record store where they are in the listening booth and both want to kiss but are too shy. That was the one scene in the movie where I truly believed. It was almost as if it was filmed the first day the actors met and the director told them, "Ok, Ethan Hawke, meet Julie Delpy, Julie Delpy, meet Ethan Hawke. Now both of you get in this tiny room, listen to this record and pretend you like it even though it really sucks and is totally cheesy, and act like you want to kiss each other but are too nervous." Then once they had gone through that they had a connection, but since they (in this pretend world) filmed the beginning afterwards, it was unconvincing because they had already shared that moment. 
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