Before Sunset

I think Before Sunset really captures a woman’s silent pain. The heartbreak that lingers throughout years. The way timing can be so cruel. The way you swallow things you so desperately want to say. She tells Jesse early on in the film they didn’t have sex that night in Vienna and Jesse’s in disbelief because they most certainly did. Then throughout the whole film, she slowly admits she remembers more. She remembers exact details and always has. She WROTE THE WALTZ SONG FOR HIM FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. It perfectly captures a woman who got her hopes up in one night with a man who she spent nine years quietly thinking about. Then, when the moment they meet again, she tries to downplay it to not let that hope she once had in relationships and that night hurt her like it did before. The entire third act is breathtaking. You watch two people who were separated by time and distance peel back their defenses and face the ache of everything they missed. It’s raw. It’s human. And it feels like destiny and regret colliding in real time.