The Rewatchables
‘Before Sunset’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Mallory Rubin
Tue, 04 Feb 2025
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Mallory Rubin have one day to find out if they should pod together forever after rewatching Richard Linklater’s 2004 romantic drama ‘Before Sunset.' Watch this episode on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel! Producer: Craig Horlbeck Video Producers: Jack Sanders and Chia Hao Tat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the main theme of 'Before Sunset'?
These things that somebody else is just storing, you're never going to get them back.
She's talking about them, in this point in her life, less as gifts than as robberies. She feels bereft of something that she has given another person and then no longer has.
Obviously, specifically with Jessie, one of the really heart-wrenching moments of the movie is when she says, basically, I had this life-altering night with you, and then you took everything with you, and I didn't have it anymore, right?
The way that she speaks in general, I mean, obviously, you guys, I thought, did a beautiful job in the first pod of talking about how they are this idea of, like, are you a romantic or are you a cynic? Really, they're both both.
And part of what makes the trilogy this great treatise on love and, like, evolution inside of a relationship is they move across the movies, but they move inside of the movies as well. And so when she's talking about how she... would prefer to be alone because like that's actually better than being lonely with somebody you've chosen to share your life with.
Which is what's happening to Jesse.
Yeah. And right. So of course he understands that keenly, but he's also like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. You just said you can love and you want to be loved. She's like, right. And that's actually why I'm pissed because you made me remember that I used to feel that way.
Yeah.
Like the beauty and the devastation of that are inextricable from each other.
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Chapter 2: How do the characters evolve in the sequel?
He does, and people pointed out to me what I was trying to think of, which is who's the character who ports over in a film, you know? And it's Ray Nicolette, who's in Out of Sight, and who's also in Jackie Brown. Yeah. Um, but that's just a very uncommon thing and it's very hard to pull that off.
And I don't, you know, I, it would be interesting to watch more filmmakers and actors try to pull this off of like more small scale.
This is closer to like Michael Apted's and up series than it is the Godfather.
I mean, the trip movies with Coogan and Bryden are kind of like this, but they were TV series in Europe. Yeah.
Usually it goes the way of another 48 hours. Yeah.
Yeah.
We've all packed some pounds on. Eddie put on some weight. Yeah. We got you out of jail again. He's not a smoking racist anymore. Where are we? Why did this happen? Can we talk about the Oscar piece of this? Sure.
Yeah.
We have to take a break? Let's take a break and then we'll do the Oscar piece of this. All right, so I try not to do this with every movie we do, but I found the 2005 Oscars for the 2004 season confusing when it happened because this movie was critically adored. And I think I just don't really understand it.
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Chapter 3: What are the critical moments in the movie?
He's like, that's a great one.
He would be an unreal podcaster though, Jesse.
He's got so many takes, so many apocryphal anecdotes. Can I pod with him?
Sprint his legs for Jesse already. Jawing with Jesse?
Featuring C.R.R.
Great. Put him on the Prestige TV pod. He would be good. He's just breaking down severance. Yeah. Then we get near the end of the boat. You want to know why I wrote that book?
So good.
All right. Now I know for sure.
You want to know why I wrote that stupid book?
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Chapter 4: How does nostalgia play a role in the story?
It's so sad because then he goes right into like, but there's no joy or laughter in my home.
Yeah.
It's like, I don't want to get to 52 and finally have to like admit that this was all a pretense and I don't love my spouse.
Yeah.
Very tough to hear. Very painful.
Then she's like, wait, I'll get sadder than this after she almost touches his head.
But then he says that he's had sex 10 times in four years, so it's like he's doing great. Yeah.
away the thing about this scene to me which is my favorite scene in the movie by far and I think is one of the most incredibly well-written scenes And how long did they go for? It feels like eight or nine minutes. At least nine.
The thing that really hit for me this time when I was watching it is we actually do see a lot of scenes like this now in popular culture because everything is so therapized. And people are all about finding ways to talk about your feelings. But it's done using the language of therapy.
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Chapter 5: What are the best scenes from 'Before Sunset'?
Yeah. Exactly. She's pretty busy. She was in New Delhi. You know, it's like all consuming.
Pretty busy. She was in New York for four years. She was in the United States of America for four years. Yeah. Yeah.
But didn't know his last name at that point.
We had AOL at that time.
Yeah.
How many Jesses are in Texas?
I just feel like she would have known his last name by the end of spending 20 hours together in Vienna. What is his last name? Wallace. What's aged the worst? I really have nothing other than I wanted Delpy to take a couple more puffs from the cigarette. She might say it.
She takes one and then really doesn't smoke it anymore. I'm not sure to be a dick, but can we just talk this out? Can we have the meeting? Jesse's second novel idea is not good.
Oh, yeah.
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