(Rated R)
When a novelist (Ethan Hawke) is on book tour in Paris, an old lover rendezvousssssss her way back into his life during his book signing. While on a ticking clock to catch a plane, Hawke instead strolls with this girl (Julie Delphy) that he flinged with ten years ago in Vienna. And so they walk and talk, and talk, and talk about decisions gone bad, relationships that never were, his interpretation of the book he’s based on her, and that one long lost night from his point of view vs. hers. The couple cruises the streets of Paris, so one is already sold by the romantic backdrop to their brilliant dialog and philosophies, pulling us into their make-the-world-go-away passions. The movie narrows into an intimate world that no typical Hollywood script could create – no special effects except for the ones that surface from their own time constraints. Trying to separate fiction from auto-biography Hawke and Delphy analyze their feelings with incredible one on one performances. Like “Before Sunrise” the movie again tackles a place where art meets life and sometimes life ain’t what it’s all cracked up to be. “C’est La Vie.” Let’s only hope in ten more years we can visit this couple again because they are simply thrilling, and leave us pondering why we ourselves are so in-tuned to them.