A cross-cultural romcom

Outsourced (2006), directed by John Jeffcoat, is a curious under-the-radar American romantic comedy that explores cultural differences between the United States and India within the context of globalization and outsourcing. The film follows Todd Anderson, a call center manager from Seattle, played by Josh Hamilton, whose department is relocated to India. Sent abroad to train his replacement, Todd initially struggles with adapting to the unfamiliar customs and work environment. However, as he immerses himself in Indian culture, he forms a bond with Asha, a confident and intelligent employee portrayed by Ayesha Dharker. Their budding romance, along with Todd’s growing appreciation for his new surroundings, transforms his outlook on both his professional and personal life.

The film received critical acclaim for its thoughtful approach to globalization and cross-cultural relationships, earning praise for its authenticity and wit. Its success even led to a short-lived NBC television adaptation in 2010, further cementing its place as a standout film that blends comedy with social commen    tary.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Outsourced, conducted last week, click here.

To its credit or detriment – depending on how you look at it – Outsourced avoids any major drama or conflict, despite its sensitive subject matter of workers being devalued and unappreciated, instead treating this topic as a lighthearted romcom. Some would call this a refreshingly positive and entertaining spin while others could criticize this work as culturally insensitive and clichéd – a whitewashing of the harsh reality that many exploited and underpaid workers in India face. Austin Chronicle critic Josh Rosenblatt wrote: “Any movie willing to put such a sunshiny glow on such a deflating subject deserves some credit, whether for inveterate optimism or good-natured self-delusion. Its head may be in the sand, but Outsourced is a good-spirited idyll, an escape from reality, naive to a fault, and all but unconcerned with the troubles of the world but almost – almost – convincing in its innocence.”

Although there’s the hint of a romantic lifeline in the final scene, Outsourced doesn’t give us the overdone boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back formula; while we admire Asha’s agency as a covert lover in a relationship -controlled society, she doesn’t seem to want to buck familial tradition or cultural rules by refusing her impending prearranged marriage. The speed with which she and Todd fall into a physical relationship appears Hollywoodized and convenient, adding arguably an unfortunate and predictable element to the story (as well as a running gag with the Kamasutra jokes); nevertheless, the romance is necessary to help us better identify with Todd as a sympathetic character and to add some zest to an otherwise straightforward “fish out of water” narrative in which the outsider learns and grows.

That being said, even though it’s necessary for proper character arcing, Todd’s transition from peeved ugly American abroad to enlightened expatriate with a heart of gold – demarcated by the scene in which he submerges into the water and emerges an apparently new man – seems to occur implausibly quickly.

Possibly the movie’s best moment is the relatively wordless scene where he climbs the wall and follows the town’s unofficial electrician to enjoy a simple meal with his family sitting on the street. It’s a touching sequence devoid of trite comedy touches that shows us another side to this colorful country he’s learning to explore.

Outsourced espouses that flexibility is the secret to survival. Todd and his staff quickly learn that they must pivot and adapt to rapidly changing conditions and external pressures if they want to keep their jobs and succeed in an increasingly unpredictable business environment and, in Todd’s case, an exotic sociocultural environment. This is a film about the value of rolling with the changes.

Indeed, learning to assimilate and step outside your comfort zone without major resistance is the obvious raison d’être. Recall what the fellow American tells Todd in the fast food restaurant: “I was resisting India. Once I gave in, I did much better.” In the first act, recall how Todd acts like an entitled and narrow-minded American infiltrator, refusing to embrace cultural differences and treating employees without courtesy, kindness, or respect. But after a baptismal epiphany during India’s Holi festival, we see how Todd becomes happier and a more effective leader by learning to better appreciate and respect India, its people, and their traditions.

Ultimately, this film reminds us that people around the world essentially want the same things. These include a trustworthy employer that pays them fairly and values them as human beings, kindness, understanding, and acceptance from others – particularly strangers and those in authority – and an opportunity to love and be loved (as demonstrated by Purohit’s ambition to get married as well as Asha’s desire for a fling before her arranged marriage).

Similar works

• Lost in Translation (2003) – A more introspective take on cultural displacement, set in Tokyo.
• The Terminal (2004) – Tom Hanks plays a man stuck in an airport due to visa issues, adapting to an unfamiliar environment.
• A Good Year (2006) – A businessman inherits a vineyard in France and learns to appreciate a slower, richer life.
• Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – A Mumbai slum boy's life story unfolds through flashbacks as he wins Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, revealing love, hardship, and destiny.
• The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) – British retirees move to India, experiencing both the beauty and chaos of a new culture.
• Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) – A British fisheries expert works on an unusual project in the Middle East, leading to unexpected friendships.
• Queen (2013, Bollywood) – An Indian woman goes on a solo honeymoon to Europe after being jilted and discovers herself through cultural interactions.
• The Internship (2013) – Two older salesmen land an internship at Google and struggle to adapt to a new work culture.
• Chef (2014) – A chef reinvents himself by starting a food truck business, emphasizing personal and professional transformation.
• The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) – An Indian family opens a restaurant in France, leading to a cultural clash and eventual mutual appreciation.
• The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015) – A biographical drama about an Indian mathematician navigating Cambridge University.

Other films by John Jeffcoat

• Big in Japan (2014)
• Bingo! The Documentary (1999)
• Amplified Seattle (2010)

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Here's what's really Happening in this brave film by Audrey Diwan

One of the most talked-about and significant films focused on a woman’s right to choose, Happening (L'Événement) is a 2021 French drama directed by Audrey Diwan, based on Annie Ernaux's autobiographical novel of the same name. Set in France in 1963, the story follows Anne Duchesne (Anamaria Vartolomei), a bright university student who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at a time when abortion was illegal in that country. Determined to continue her education and escape the social constraints placed on women, Anne desperately seeks a way to terminate her pregnancy, facing increasing isolation and danger. Happening received high praise for its unflinching and intimate portrayal of reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, and societal oppression, winning the Golden Lion at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Happening, conducted last week, click here.

Be forewarned: This a visceral cinematic experience that can affect you intellectually, emotionally, and even physically. Watching Anne attempt a self-induced abortion and, later, two attempts at pregnancy termination with the aid of a clandestine abortionist, is, to say the least, cringe-worthy and stomach-turning – all too palpably real in their subjectively detailed depictions and made all the more nightmarishly realistic thanks to a stunning performance by Vartolomei – who is asked to do so much in this role, including frequently act in various stages of undress. The director astutely uses long takes, handheld cameras, and subjective POV shots to put the viewer in the shoes of this character, forcing us to identify with her corporeal and existential dilemma.

Interestingly, while this film is subtextually critical of patriarchal society and its rules and conventions, and most of the male characters are not sympathetic, Diwan doesn’t throw the entire gender under the bus. We see how Jean, who earlier persuades Anne to have sex with him with no consequences, later proves his merit as a friend by referring her to resources that can help; professor Bornec, who comes across as cold and harsh throughout most of the story, demonstrates empathy for his student later when she hints at being formerly pregnant; and her main doctor appears slightly compassionate, even though he doesn’t go out of his way to assist her; we also observe how Anne watches her parents laughing together during a dinnertime scene, suggesting that she recognizes the value of a loving relationship between a man and a woman.

The filmmakers also refreshingly present female characters who aren’t afraid to pursue or exhibit sexual gratification, helping to skewer the old double standard that only males in serious dramas are allowed to act horny while women remain pure and demure. Per Roger Ebert.com critic Tomris Laffly: “Among Diwan’s greatest feats with “Happening” is making a case not only for safe access to legal abortions, but also for true sexual freedom that dares to yearn for a world where slut-shaming is a thing of the past. With scenes both unassuming and rapturous—especially a radical one where a female friend demonstrates her masturbation technique in front of a shocked Anne—Diwan almost stubbornly validates and celebrates the equality of a woman’s desire. What a rare treat in a punishing world that denies women that parity.”

This is a period piece set in 1963 France, yet it avoids the antiquity trappings that often come with time capsule movies of a specific era and place. The film intentionally feels modern, insinuating that these characters and situations could exist in today’s world. Consequently, Happening feels more topical and relevant today and certainly in 2021 when it was released (especially in America at that time, just before the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe versus Wade).

The main message here is clear: Lack of agency begets extreme consequences. Anne, like all women at this time in France (and most nations around the world), was forbidden from terminating her pregnancy and threatened with prison time if she even attempted an abortion. Yet keeping her child would likely mean living a life of public shame and being prevented from pursuing higher education or a preferred vocation. This character’s existential plight resonates with any viewer who tries to understand the extreme challenges many women have faced in the past and confront in the present when they try to exercise their reproductive rights and evade patriarchal rules that commonly eliminate a woman’s right to choose what she wants to do with her body.

Happening also explores the pursuit of freedom and choice at all costs. Martin Tsai, a critic with the AV Club, wrote: “For Anne, her choices are liberty or death. Hélène says early on about herself that she’ll be operating a tractor the following year if she flunks the exam. Anne is resolved to continue her studies. She plainly explains to one of her doctors that if she were to give up her promising future for a child, she’d end up resenting the child for the rest of her life. So she risks her life, even if she could still end up spending it in a literal prison if she survives.”

Alienation and social rejection are under the director’s microscope, too. Anne endures slut shaming from many of her fellow classmates, scorn and ridicule from male doctors, and lack of support from her friends. Fortunately, her male friend Jean connects her to a female who refers Anne to a back-alley abortionist. And one of her cronies who previously refused to help, Helene, offers emotional support and confides that she, too, dabbled in sex but didn’t get pregnant.

On a positive note, Happening espouses the value of pivoting in the face of change. Anne’s harrowing experiences cause her to shift from her initial goal of being a teacher to now being a writer; considering that this story is adapted from the 2000 memoir Happening by Ernaux, based on her real-life experiences, the protagonist decided to tell the world about her ordeal in book form.

Similar works

• One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977)
• Story of Women (1988)
• A Simple Story (1991)
• Dekalog: Chapter 2 (1990)
• L’Enfant (2005)
• 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007)
• Vera Drake (2004)
• The Kid with a Bike (2011)
• Invisible Life (2019)
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
• Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
• Tori and Lokita (2022)

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Savoring Fellini's "sweet life" cinema

One of the crown jewels of world cinema, La Dolce Vita (1960) follows the life of Marcello Rubini, a disillusioned journalist played by Marcello Mastroianni, as he navigates Rome’s glamorous but empty nightlife in search of meaning. Over seven episodic days and nights, he encounters celebrities, aristocrats, intellectuals, and socialites, including the sensual American actress Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), the wealthy and detached Maddalena (Anouk Aimée), his jealous fiancée Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), and the intellectual Steiner (Alain Cuny). Directed by Federico Fellini, the film is best known for its striking black-and-white cinematography by Otello Martelli, its innovative storytelling, and its cultural impact. A meditation on decadence, fame, and the loss of authenticity, the picture won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and continues to influence cinema, fashion, and art, with Mastroianni’s performance cementing him as an icon of European film.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of La Dolce Vita, conducted earlier this month, click here. To hear the latest Cineversary podcast episode celebrating the 65th anniversary of La Dolce Vita, click here.

La Dolce Vita still resonates 65 years later because it remains a fascinating cultural artifact of a particular place and time: Late 1950s Rome. It contains several visually arresting vignettes and set pieces that take us throughout the city and across different classes, subcultures, and sites – taking us along the journey to several iconic Roman locations, including the Trevi Fountain; Via Veneto; St. Peter’s Basilica; the Baths of Caracalla; Castel Sant’Angelo; the EUR District; and Piazza del Popolo.

“Always a master of the grand tableau, Fellini captures Rome in staggering breadth, from the opening aerial shots of the city, the narrow streets, prostitutes' bedrooms through to aristocratic homes and around the historic landmarks on the back of a Vespa. He's like a tireless, voluble tour guide; you're never quite sure where he's going but you're compelled to follow,” Guardian critic Steve Rose assessed.

The film visually showcases what was called the Italian economic miracle, occurring from roughly 1958 to 1963, when the country experienced rapid industrial growth, transforming from an agrarian society into a major economic power, and living standards were improved. This gave rise to two particular movements: "café society" in Italy and Europe, represented by groups of fashionable and wealthy people who gathered in stylish cafes, restaurants, and nightclubs to socialize and engage in artistic and intellectual conversations; and celebrity culture, in which famous actors, models, athletes, and personalities become glamorized and overexposed through an increasingly shameless, debased media that satiate the public’s voracious appetite for glitz, gossip, scandal, and sex appeal, spread lies, and stage exaggerated or fake events.

This work has stood the test of time thanks to the efforts of an adventurous filmmaker who wasn’t afraid to deviate from traditional narrative construction and, to some extent, rewrite the form—which keeps this picture feeling fresh and innovative. Instead of following a standard three-act structure and straightforward plot, Fellini presents interrelated but not necessarily linear vignettes (consisting of 50 total scenes), each spanning 14 to 30 minutes, that follow his main character over roughly 7 days and nights, with each episode including or prefacing a nocturnal adventure and/or the dawn that follows it. Along this journey, the director discards the rules of conflict and closure, continuity, and redemptive characteristics that can make a protagonist sympathetic – although there is still a traceable character arc if you follow Marcello’s journey.

Ponder how Fellini constantly surprises us with unexpected transitions, juxtaposed images, and ellipses between scenes. Recall the opening helicopter sequence, which immediately shifts to a medium close-up of a nightclub dancer clad in a Far East mask and garb; Marcello running into a church (a place we least expect him to visit); the abrupt swing from the dreamlike romance of the Trevi Fountain to harsh sunup reality as Sylvia’s fiancé slaps her and punches Marcello; the lavish revelry that cuts to Marcello wandering Rome’s empty streets; the lively party transitioning quickly to the grim discovery of Steiner’s suicide and filicide; and the debauched orgy that moves outdoors to the beach at quiet dawn.

“(Fellini’s) best films live and breathe and morph, none more so than the picaresque La dolce vita, which may be his most nearly perfect, astutely rueful, least sentimental work,” per Criterion Collection essayist Gary Giddens. “One of the most prescient of all films, it now triggers a different set of keywords than it did in the early 1960s…After a dozen years of neorealism, which cataloged the privations of postwar Italy, Fellini reinvented Rome as a caravan of dreams or nightmares, debauched, pathetic, yet perfidiously appealing, a tourist attraction and also a recruitment station for the inferno.”

La Dolce Vita also still matters because it continues to be a cerebral experience. It requires more active participation from the viewer and, therefore, rewards those who ponder more intellectually about what Fellini and company are trying to say. Thematically rich and creatively constructed, it’s a thinking person’s picture, although more passive viewers can still find it entertaining and graphically gratifying even if they’re not exactly sure how all the Marcello episodes fit together.

The film’s influential reach is impressive. Consider how it was responsible for originating three words or phrases that took root in the cultural consciousness, including the “paparazzi,” “Felliniesque,” and “la dolce vita” itself (which means “the sweet life”). The movie also made Marcello Mastroianni an international star and Fellini’s most frequently used actor from that point forward. In his thought-provoking essay, Giddens provides ample examples of the film’s pervasive reach and lasting impact in the short and long term: “(La Dolce Vita) augurs our obsessions with the loss of privacy and the rise of virtuality, the deadening of the senses and the addiction to technology, the corruption of media, the lust for fame, and the waning of lust when acculturation trumps individual agency. La dolce vita altered the look, style, and expanse of movies, popularizing overdressed Euro-chic ennui, deflating the pneumatic concupiscence of bombshell film queens, urbanizing the garden of earthly delights, and setting them to warped cabaret music. Movies were soon rife with Americans spending two weeks in another town, usually Rome. Alfred Hitchcock appropriated the sequence of Anita Ekberg wading in Trevi Fountain as backstory for The Birds. Bob Dylan rhymed La dolce vita and Rita in Motorpsycho Nightmare.”

Of course, Fellini’s own 8 ½ (1963) shares visual and thematic elements and also stars Mastroianni. Other cinematic kindred spirits include La Notte (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962), I Knew Her Well (1965), Woody Allen’s Celebrity (1998) and To Rome With Love (2012), and even Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), as blogger Jenna Ipcar demonstrates an interesting essay. The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza, 2013), about an aging writer encountering high society decadence in Rome, is regarded as a more contemporary La Dolce Vita.

Literary and cinematic predecessors that might have inspired La Dolce Vita include Dante’s Divine Comedy (1320), T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land (1922), Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (1913–1927), F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), Billy Wilder’s film Ace in the Hole (1951), Michelangelo Antonioni’s Le Amiche (1955) and Il Grido (1957), and Luchino Visconti’s White Nights (1957).

Fellini is clearly taking aim here at moral vacuity and ennui in an increasingly vapid culture and self-indulgent society. La Dolce Vita hints at the dangers of decadence, hedonism, celebrity culture, lack of empathy, and ethical indifference in an increasingly secular world that values immediate gratification. Slant magazine reviewer Matthew Connolly sums it up well: “Fellini’s coolly damning masterpiece observes a vast array of celebrities, scenesters, performers, artists, dilettantes, would-be intellectuals, and hangers-on of all shapes and sizes—every one of them fiddling while Rome burns, or at least creaks under the weight of its own spiritual malaise.”

The existential conflict at the center of the story is hard to miss. Our protagonist must choose between indulgence versus integrity, style versus substance, and short-term gains versus long-term fulfillment. Marcello is torn between the pleasure principled sweet life of tabloid journalism and its decadent perks, or less glamorous literary and intellectual pursuits as a serious writer. He vacillates between disposable partners who offer pleasurable but fleeting and meaningless sexual flings and a relationship with his fiancée who can love him for a lifetime but who crimps his lifestyle and ambitions with her clinginess and jealousy. Recall how Steiner’s friend Laura tells Marcello “…you have two loves, and you don't know which one to choose: journalism or literature. Beware of prisons! Remain free, available, like me. Never marry anything. Never choose. Even in love, it's better to be chosen. The great thing is to burn, and not to freeze.” We remember Marcello’s remark: “I need a change of scene…I’m wasting my life.”

Ruminate on how Marcello is often shown ascending or descending levels via staircases, scaffolding, and a helicopter. These upward movements – including his stair climb up Saint Peter’s dome, Marcello’s ascent to Steiner’s high-rise apartment, and his elevation to the loft where Steiner plays the organ possibly suggest a moral uplifting or his attempts to attain a higher ideal. Downward movements – going down into the crypt, the prostitute’s home, or the underground nightclubs – signify falls from grace and a lowering of standards.

La Dolce Vita is also a film about frustration, centered on sexual, career, and relationship disappointments and dissatisfaction. Time and again, Marcello (and his father in a later scene) is thwarted from kissing or coupling with an object of desire, greeting yet another new dawn without fulfillment, release, or epiphany. After Steiner’s fall from grace in his eyes, Marcello apparently drops any hopes of pursuing serious writing, abandoning journalism altogether to become an even less respectable press agent. He has become a hollow, pathetic figure of self-loathing. Critic Roger Ebert called this film “an allegory – a cautionary tale of a man without a center.”

Irony and hypocrisy abound in this Fellini creation, as well. Ponder how Marcello often tries to evade the media spotlight when it shines on him, yet he’s a card-carrying member of that club; we observe his friend Paparazzo cross himself religiously before taking a photo for his tabloid rag during the “field of miracles” segment; Marcello and Emma constantly fight and break up, only to quickly reunite; Emma realizes that the children’s claim to have seen the Madonna is a sham yet still prays for Marcello’s affection, joining the crowd in tearing apart the nearby tree for precious pieces of its branches; Marcello lionizes Steiner and seeks to emulate this mentor but is completely disillusioned when Steiner kills himself and his children; Maddalena says she’s in love with Marcello and hints at marriage but a moment later is seen lustfully kissing a stranger.

Time and again La Dolce Vita juxtaposes two polarities – the sacred versus the profane – with memorable images and contrasting ideas. Examples include the two symbols of Christ that open and close the film (the Jesus statue versus the washed-up sea creature); the statue imagery – comedically insinuating the Messiah’s second coming in a sacrilegious way, according to the Catholic Church – followed closely by visions of bikini-clad beauties and sensationalistic journalists; the visibly present “perfect woman”, embodied in Silvia, contrasting with another idealized but invisible female, the Virgin Mary; the carnivalesque media circus that is created on a would-be sanctified site; and the hallowed organ music played from the church as opposed to the secular pop tunes emanating from the nightclubs or, as I like to call it “Bach vs. Bacchus,” the Roman god of wine and revelry.

Some viewers struggle to interpret the ending of the film. Here’s one reading: The dead aquatic animal – perhaps a manta ray – washed up on the beach can be loosely deciphered as a symbol of a dead Christ (Jesus is often associated with fish and Piscean imagery); recall how the fishermen say the animal had been dead for three days, the length of time Christ was deceased before being resurrected. Remember how the film opens with the striking imagery of a gigantic Jesus statue being helicoptered across Rome; this dead fish visual then serves as a spiritual-shifting-to-secular bookend to the narrative – Marcello’s story as well as Italy’s story through the eyes of Fellini.

The waitress Paola is present in this scene for thematic reasons and to remind Marcello of their first encounter at the cafe, when he was attempting to be a serious writer; however, he doesn’t recognize or hear her, which intimates that he has completely forgotten that ambition or talent and is deaf to a higher calling. Remember how, at the opening of the film, Marcello – aloft in a helicopter – experienced a similar problem hearing and communicating with the rooftop sunbathers.

The breaking of the fourth wall, with Paola turning to stare directly at us, continued a recent European and French new wave tradition in which characters in films by Bergman (Summer With Monika, 1953), Truffaut (The 400 Blows, 1959, which famously ends with a still frame of the protagonist looking at the camera), and Godard (Breathless, 1960) do the same. A similar shot occurs earlier in La Dolce Vita, when Steiner and his wife briefly stare into the camera (which is not necessarily a POV shot from Marcello’s perspective). The image of Paola – a relatively insignificant character who functions more as a symbol of purity, innocence, and simplicity – looking directly into our eyes implies that she’s also looking directly at Marcello, and vice versa; her semi-smiling visage, with a face described earlier by Marcello as angelic, gives Marcello and the audience hope that he can choose a more virtuous path in the future if he wants it. 

This movie’s most valuable largesse to the masses who continue to flock to the shrine of Fellini is its ability to both entertain and illuminate, to completely capture our attention with its loose episodic structure yet also provide a moral message without any sermonizing as well as a fairly clear – if frustrating – character arc in the form of Marcello, a man torn between two modes of living who ultimately chooses the easier path: the “sweet life” of this film’s title. The multiple vignettes serve as short films within the film and would make fascinating feature-length narratives of their own if expanded upon. 

Yet, collectively, they’re greater than the sum of their parts because each episode contributes to the overall mosaic that is Marcello, a figure who’s more than a conflicted journalist pulled in two opposing directions; he represents Italy itself at a crossroads moment in its history when the traditions and beliefs of the past were being supplanted or challenged by contemporary ideas and trends that seemed to value vice over virtue, fame and fortune over integrity, commercialism over intellectualism, and profligacy and selfishness over good taste and goodwill. This is a film of ideas that challenges the viewer to think beyond the basic narrative, learn more about the cultural context of this period in Italy’s history, and look for parallels and dichotomies within each of the chapters presented.

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Cineversary podcast celebrates 65th anniversary of Fellini's La Dolce Vita

Antonio Monda

In Cineversary podcast episode #79, host ⁠Erik Martin⁠ marks the 65th anniversary of one of the crown jewels of world cinema, La Dolce Vita, directed by Federico Fellini. Accompanying him this month is filmmaker and Fellini scholar Antonio Monda, associate professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Together, they explore how the movie broke new ground, why it’s still relevant, its multiple themes, and much more.

To listen to this episode, click here or click the "play" button on the embedded streaming player below. Or, you can stream, download, or subscribe to Cineversary wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Learn more about the Cineversary podcast at www.cineversary.com and email show comments or suggestions to cineversarypodcast@gmail.com.

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The emotionally potent aftermath of Aftersun

The 21st century has proved to be perhaps the golden age of child acting on film, with numerous examples of stellar performances by juvenile actors as well as outstanding stories centering on the lives of memorable kid characters, each depicted in unique cinematic ways. For proof, consider Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), The Kid with a Bike (2011), Boyhood (2014), Sami Blood (2016), Moonlight (2016), The Florida Project (2017) Summer 1993 (2017), Eighth Grade (2018), and Petit Maman (2021). One of the most recent examples is Aftersun (2022), the feature film debut by Charlotte Wells, and starring Frankie Corio in an unforgettable performance, that is loosely drawn from her own childhood experiences.

Produced by A24, Aftersun follows an 11-year-old girl named Sophie (Corio) and her father Calum (Paul Mescal) on summer trip to Turkey, blending present-day reflections and home video clips to reveal their tender but complex bond. The film's quiet storytelling, powerful acting, and evocative visuals explore themes of memory, mental health, and parent-child relationships, making it a critically acclaimed work celebrated for its emotional resonance and artistic direction.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of this film, conducted last week, click here.

In a movie with a threadbare plot, you’d likely expect words to capture our attention. Yet there’s very little dialogue in Aftersun. We trust that Sophie and Calum have a strong daughter-father bond, but much goes unspoken. This makes us completely reliant on the performances and chemistry between these two actors.

Watching Aftersun, you can’t help but notice several key shots that show Calum and/or Sophie as echoed images, such as reflected off a mirror, body of water, or TV screen. These facsimile visuals, offbeat compositions, and unexpected visual choices correlate with and underpin a key message of the movie: reconstructed and altered memories.

We are given Sophie’s POV fairly consistently, but there are some shots and sequences not from her perspective, where she is not present. Quite possibly these moments minus Sophie also represent her retroactive point of view, as if she has reconstructed things that were a mystery to her as a child and envisioned, for example, what her father did when they were apart (trying to light the cigarette on the balcony, diving into the pitch black ocean).

Perhaps Aftersun’s greatest attribute is its power to help us see the world through the eyes of a child. Although she is precociously perceptive, Sophie is still only 11 and cannot quite grasp what’s behind her father’s inherent sadness, hesitancy, and dysfunction. We, like her, can only try to piece together the puzzle that is Calum based on visual fragments and auditory clues filtered through the lens of her young experiences as well as the literal lens of Calum’s camcorder footage Sophie views later as an adult.

Using reconstructed and altered memories, this movie examines how childhood recollections and past visions can be reinterpreted as an adult, taking on new meanings and significance. Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw subscribes to this theory: “Aftersun is about childhood memories being worn to a sheen by being constantly replayed in your mind, about the meanings that were not there then, but are there now, revealed or perhaps created by the remembering mind, and endowed with a new poignancy and grace.” New Republic reviewer Daphne Merkin is of a like mind, writing: “It portrays an endlessly refracted reality, filtered through the haze of memory, in which we look at Calum in a mirror looking at a video camera; he meanwhile connects with his daughter mainly through filtered or mediated images, such as the surface of the resort’s pool. It is as though reality were composed of platonic shadows of things rather than the things or people in themselves.”

Aftersun stands as one of the most effective and devastating modern works about processing grief and loss. (Spoiler) It’s strongly suggested that Sophie’s father died sometime after he shot the footage of their Turkish vacation, recorded in the late 1990s (as evidenced by the TV and camcorder technology present in the story, the 1990s pop music heard, the fact that no cellular phones are used, and what her father tells the young man working on the boat: “I can’t see myself at 40, to be honest. I’m surprised I made it to 30.”). One hint that her holiday with dad at 11 years old was their last time spent together is the dance scene toward the conclusion, punctuated by the lyrics to the Queen’s Under Pressure: “This is our last dance.” Consider, as well, how Sophie continues to have hallucination-like dreams or fantasies about her father dancing under strobe lights in a dark club; the last version of this imagery shows young Sophie morphing into her adult self and trying to embrace her father.

Recall, as well, how the last time we see Calum is presumably at the airport when he is videotaping Sophie saying goodbye, but this father figure turns around, walks down the corridor, and opens a door that reveals a strobe-lit dark club-like atmosphere, insinuating surreality and a link to Sophie’s dream imagery. “Wells intersperses the vacation with surreal dream-like ‘rave’ sequences…She wants to get to him, touch him, hold him,” Roger Ebert.com reviewer Sheila O’Malley wrote. “Sophie is an adult now. She understands him so much better now. What would it be like if she could talk to him? They would still have so much to say to one another. In a way, Aftersun is an act of imaginative empathy. Sophie can now look at the things that child Sophie could not see.”

This is, of course, a coming-of-age picture about the transition from childhood to adulthood, although Sophie isn’t ready to make that leap yet. In Turkey, she remains relatively naïve, innocent, and inexperienced about worldly matters, as you’d expect given her age. But she’s starting to figure things out around the periphery, including paying attention to sexual and relationship cues, adult emotional states, and dangers to female safety. Heads up to all you parents of tweenagers: Sophie is no unicorn; your kids are more keenly insightful than you think.

Similar works

• Paper Moon (1973)
• The Piano (1993)
• Fly Away Home (1996)
• Whale Rider (2002)
• The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)
• The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
• Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
• Fish Tank (2009)
• An Education (2009)
• Eighth Grade (2013)

Other short films by Charlotte Wells

• Tuesday
• Laps
• Blue Christmas

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Jazzz, pizzazz, and a whole lot of razzmatazz

Quite possibly the most autobiographical film musical ever made, All That Jazz (1979) was helmed by Bob Fosse, who also co-wrote and choreographed the movie. It offers a riveting peek into Fosse’s life via the character of Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider), focusing on his struggles with artistic ambition, personal relationships, and his confrontation with mortality. Joe is a talented but self-destructive Broadway choreographer and director juggling the creation of a musical with his declining health and personal chaos. 

Blending reality with fantasy, All That Jazz—costarring Jessica Lange, Leland Palmer, Ann Reinking, Ben Vereen, and John Lithgow—features surreal musical sequences that illustrate Gideon’s internal turmoil and relentless pursuit of artistic flawlessness. It earned widespread critical praise and several accolades, including the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

To hear a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of All That Jazz, conducted last week, click here.

Part of the fun of watching this film is paying attention to its meta elements – the way it’s self-referential and slyly comments on the process of filmmaking. Consider how the character of Joe is a loose representation of Bob Fosse, the film's director and choreographer. This adds a layer of self-reflection, as the narrative draws from Fosse’s own experiences in the entertainment world, turning the film into a commentary on both his personal life and professional journey. This movie is loosely based on a highly stressful period in Fosse’s life, in the mid-1970s, when he was both editing the film Lenny, which he directed, and attempting to stage the Broadway musical Chicago; Fosse actually did suffer a heart attack and underwent cardiac surgery, as does Joe, only Fosse survived until 1987, when he ended up succumbing to another heart attack.

Throughout the film, characters are also shown navigating the challenges of creating both a Broadway show and a movie. This behind-the-scenes perspective invites the audience to recognize that they are watching a story about the very process of filmmaking and theater production. But the meta-Easter eggs don’t stop there: the character of Kate is played by Fosse’s former girlfriend at the time, Ann Reinking; the editor Joe works with on the standup comic film he’s cutting is the actual editor of the film All That Jazz, Alan Heim; Cliff Gorman, who won a Tony Award for playing Lenny Bruce in the original stage production of Lenny, was cast as the lead in the film Joe is editing, The Stand-Up; and Audrey’s character is based on Fosse’s wise Gwen Verdon, his ongoing collaborator until Fosse’s death.

All That Jazz has been fairly criticized by some as being too self-indulgent. Of course, Fosse is an easy target here because, one could argue, he’s too close to the subject matter he’s directing to be impartial. It’s impossible to ignore the built-in subjectivity of his storytelling and direction. As overwhelming proof of his over-the-top self-importance, he has the character of Joe stage his own funeral as a song-and-dance showstopper.

However, Joe—and, by extension, Fosse—is quite self-deprecating and relatively censorious in how he’s depicted as a womanizer, substance abuser, perfectionist, and in denial about his physical health. Many of his lines and monologues are disparaging and regretful of his choices and behaviors. Criterion Collection essayist Hilton Als wrote: “…how can you think of All That Jazz as being self-indulgent when Fosse is so happy to take the piss out of himself? It’s part of what made him such a witty filmmaker—the joke was on him, and some other people too.” AV Club reviewer Scott Tobias had a similar take in his review: “With a sly wink and a devil's grin, courtesy of uncanny alter ego Roy Scheider, Fosse absorbs and defuses any criticism that could be leveled against him, constantly poking holes in his inflated reputation. He counters every piece of show-stopping craft, such as the dazzling cattle call that opens the 1979 film, with bitter, excoriating truths about his weaknesses and regrets, coming clean about the bad behavior that he correctly predicts will lead him to an early grave.”

At its core, this film is about fearing and flirting with death. All That Jazz is a cautionary tale about burning the candle at both ends, pushing the boundaries of indulgence and workaholism, and trying to defy death and mortality as a figurative tightrope walker – an innovator who sacrifices health and longevity for an opportunity to be great, suffering the ultimate punishment for his art. We literally see Joe dallying coquettishly with an angel of death, as personified by Jessica Lange in the mysteriously unveiled character of Angelique.

An obsessive pursuit of perfection and its consequences is a further treatise. Joe is always trying to top himself, to make a flawless film, choreograph a pristine song and dance number, and innovate the stage musical in ways that have never been done before. “It’s showtime,” we hear him say to himself in the mirror morning after morning, suggesting how pressured he feels to constantly perform. Joe is surely concerned about obsolescence and legacy, and his ego and narcissism fuel him toward a self-realized greatness, although at a great cost to his health and relationships. Per Slant Magazine’s Chuck Bowen: “All That Jazz is so head-spinning because it’s a deeply felt, deeply stylish, deeply alive movie about disconnection, degradation, and estrangement that abounds in lewd, boozy, intellectualized poetry. The fusion of those various contrasts was Fosse’s great specialty, and it’s right there, subsumed, in the film’s rococo photography and, especially, in the amazing dance numbers, which revel in a tone of macabre erotica that contextualizes Joe’s narcissism and self-aggrandizement vis-à-vis his sex fantasies and death wishes (dying, the ultimate stage exit, absolves Joe of selflessness)… All That Jazz is Fosse’s assertion that he can make art out of anything… The source of the film’s disconcertingly contradictory power resides in its understanding that, for the loved ones left in the wake of Joe’s aloof remoteness, the art, no matter how amazing it is for us, ultimately isn’t enough.”

Viewers are also continually reminded about the price paid for hubris. Like Icarus flying too close to the sun, Joe unrealistically aims for simultaneous superhuman success and conquest on the stage, the screen, and in the bedroom without reckoning upon the proper balance needed in his life to juggle all these endeavors effectively.

Additionally, Fosse’s film explores fact versus fiction, reality versus fantasy. All That Jazz blends realistic vignettes of Joe’s work and life with illusory sequences of surreality (such as the scenes involving Angelique, the hallucinatory segment in the hospital, and the Bye Bye Life number that concludes the film). The intercutting between the real world and the dream world creates a memorably visual hybrid that is as cinematically entertaining as it is also contrastingly jarring.

Similar works

• Fellini’s 8½
• Stardust Memories
• A Chorus Line
• Flashdance
• Chicago
• Marriage Story, also directed by a man whom the lead male character is based upon
• A Star Is Born
• Birdman
• Synecdoche, New York

Other films directed by Bob Fosse

• Sweet Charity
• Cabaret
• Lenny
• Star 80

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Why the sun never truly sets on this 30-year-old romance classic

Valentine’s Day may be weeks away, but it’s never too early to start thinking about romance films that set your heart afire. Perhaps the greatest cinematic love letter of the last three decades, and one of the finest depictions of sudden young amore the movies have to offer, is Before Sunrise, directed by Richard Linklater and written by Linklater and Kim Krizan, which debuted in theaters 30 years ago today. Starring Ethan Hawke as Jesse and Julie Delpy as Céline, this is the tale of an American man and a French woman who meet on a train traveling through Europe. Jesse persuades Céline to get off the train with him in Vienna, where they spend a single night wandering the city, sharing philosophical conversations, and forming an intimate connection. Exploring themes of love, human connection, and the fleeting nature of time, the film captures the profound bond that develops between two strangers in a brief but unforgettable encounter.

To hear our CineVerse group discussion of Before Sunrise, conducted earlier this month, click here. To listen to the latest episode of the Cineversary podcast, which commemorates Before Sunrise’s 30th birthday, click here.

Before Sunrise is an easy movie to root for and embrace in large part because it’s such an underdog success story: It’s a low-budget, under-the-radar indie that nobody saw coming but has gathered such momentum over the past three decades as a terrific word-of-mouth favorite among so many film fans. Yes, it proved to be a success based on surprisingly good box office returns relative to its $2.5 million budget as well as positive critical reception early on (still true, as evidenced by a 100% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score). But more importantly, the movie has come to represent a kind of dark horse cinematic triumph that demonstrates – despite limited resources, lesser names at the time, and little ballyhoo out of the gate – the power of quality over quantity, of craft over crass commercialism in a subgenre, the romance film, brimming with mass-marketed mediocrity.

Before Sunrise’s formula for brilliance is three primary ingredients: spot-on casting, outstanding performances, and, most importantly, exceptional dialogue, as very little in the form of plot or action happens. Because we need to believe in the discourse and find it credible, the writing required a balanced approach from a man and a woman; hence, Linklater enlisted the aid of a female screenwriter (Krizan), who especially helped with Celine’s lines. Written entirely by a man, this film may not have resonated as strongly or plausibly. Being so reliant on its two main characters to captivate us, the key to this picture’s success was to have a stellar script in hand (mission accomplished) and then everyone else gets out of the way so these two gifted actors can do the heavy lifting, which is exactly what happens.

According to film reviewer James Berardinelli: “For this film to work, (Hawke and Delpy) have a threefold task: embrace their characters; attract each other; and connect with the audience… The rapport between Jesse and Celine is so lacking in artifice that at times the viewer feels like a voyeur. We are privy to everything, including the sort of ‘unimportant’ dialogue that most films shy away from.”

As is true in so many great films, these actors seem born for these roles. Hawke organically imbues Jesse with a worldly but tolerable cynicism, and Delpy effortlessly inhabits the more romantic and soul-searching Celine. They exhibit undeniable chemistry, as evidenced by the record store scene. The rhythm and timing required for that nonverbal interplay to seamlessly work speaks to the talents of and shared trust between Delpy and Hawke.

What also elevates Before Sunrise to the upper echelon is how it’s unpredictable in ways large and small. An example of the former is how, at the finale, we are left to guess if they will ever meet again. An instance of the latter is how, despite an early scene where Celine and Jesse are invited by two Viennese thespians to later attend their play, they never do. This superbly written and acted film has the luxury of completely discarding that earlier play invite setup, which many viewers may have expected to have a later payoff.

Pulling off a winning romantic drama is certainly no layup. Many viewers who frequent this aisle have expectations for Harlequin novel-esque wooing, torrid sex scenes, and stirringly soppy interplays between stock characters. Before Sunrise is a revitalizing new entrée on a mostly stale menu. Granted, the plot is threadbare—very little happens. But instead of turning to a proven yet overused formula, the filmmakers bank on two interesting personalities and well-written conversations. The emphasis is on believable human interactions over a crunchy storyline. And this work isn’t limited in its appeal to only Gen Xers, the demographic represented by Celine and Jesse. The issues and questions these young twentysomethings discuss remain evergreen and relevant to adult couples of almost any age.

Linklater and company aren’t aiming for melodramatic emotional manipulation or trying to trick you with some heavy-handed twist at the end. There is no sex scene, and we’re not even sure if they consummated the relationship, which is quite astounding when you consider that almost all movies of this stripe eventually include a bedding-down sequence and some degree of nakedness. (Sadly, this film remains rated “R,” even though there is no nudity or violence and only sparse profanity. That’s myopic and unfortunate, as it limited Before Sunrise’s original theatrical run audience to adults only, when teenagers could have certainly enjoyed and learned from this picture. In 2025, this remains an excellent film for adolescents to watch, regardless of that restrictive rating.)

Before Sunrise is set in naturally picturesque and colorfully vibrant Vienna, but it doesn’t go out of its way to romanticize that city or use it as a travelogue-like backdrop where the viewer expects the characters to fall in love because they’re surrounded by an abundance of natural beauty and venerated culture. It's admirable that the filmmakers don’t try to exploit the fact that this is set in a foreign city and use its famous landmarks, art, or architecture to over-sentimentalize or color its characters or situations.

Like other Linklater films, including Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight, this narrative occurs over a single day, without giving us the benefit of a prologue, epilogue, or flashbacks. This scenario creates an emotional urgency and immediacy, fueling Jesse and Celine to make the most of their limited window. Additionally, the movie benefits from an eclectic score that includes timeless classical works by Beethoven, Vivaldi, Strauss, and Bach as well as contemporary rock and alternative music.

Before Sunrise’s reach and influence extended across the globe in the years since its release. Consider the multiple works it helped inspire:

• In the Mood for Love (2000), Wong Kar-wai’s exploration of unspoken amore and fleeting moments.
• Lost in Translation (2003), Sofia Coppola’s meditation on the longing and emotional connection between two characters in a foreign city.
• Once (2007), an Irish musical romance that follows two strangers who form a deep connection over a short time before parting.
• 2 Days in Paris (2007), Julie Delpy’s film that explores relationship dynamics with humor and realism, influenced by her collaboration with Linklater.
• Certified Copy (2010), Abbas Kiarostami’s story of a man and woman wandering a European town that captures the raw intimacy of Before Sunrise.
• Weekend (2011), Andrew Haigh’s British indie that ruminates on fleeting intimacy and meaningful conversations between two men over a weekend.
• Blue Jay (2016), a black-and-white picture about former lovers reconnecting.
• Columbus (2017), Kogonada’s introspective film about two people bonding over architecture, which mirrors the quiet conversations and emotional depth of Before Sunrise.

Among several predecessors that may have influenced Linklater and his collaborators are:

• Brief Encounter (1945): This classic tale of a fleeting love affair shares themes of brief connections and bittersweet romance.
• The Clock (1945): This romance about a single-day love story in New York shares Before Sunrise's real-time structure and exploration of brief, intense relationships.
• Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948): Max Ophüls' exploration of fleeting love, the emotional weight of brief connections, the passage of time, unspoken emotional depth, romantic idealism, and the use of setting as a character predate Linklater’s film.
• The Third Man (1949): The atmospheric depiction of post-war Vienna in this noir, and its famous Ferris wheel scene (the same Ferris wheel used in Before Sunrise) may have inspired Linklater’s choice of a similarly evocative European setting.
• An Affair to Remember (1957): Its theme of romantic ideals and a promise to reunite echoes Before Sunrise's open-ended conclusion of trust in love.
• Annie Hall (1977): Woody Allen’s blend of humor, depth, and reflective storytelling likely influenced Linklater’s conversational style and emotional exploration of relationships.
• Manhattan (1979): This film’s focus on intellectual dialogue and the use of cityscapes as a romantic backdrop mirrors Before Sunrise's approach.
• My Dinner with Andre (1981): Its dialogue-driven narrative, centered on a philosophical conversation, likely shaped Before Sunrise's emphasis on character-driven exchanges.
• Chungking Express (1994): Wong Kar-wai’s poetic exploration of fleeting love and serendipitous encounters parallels Before Sunrise's focus on ephemeral moments.

Particular Linklater qualities shine through. Beyond the natural dialogue, minimalist narrative, and storytelling (mostly) in real-time, the director makes several insightful choices that enhance Before Sunrise. He doesn’t try to be flashy or artsy-fartsy by going for complicated setups, experimental framing, elaborate camera movements, or grandiose editing choices. Instead, Linklater and crew keep the visuals simple in terms of shots, edits, and camera placement. In fact, he utilizes many extended takes that let the characters dominate the frame and command our eyeballs, allowing us to linger longer on them and identify the shared vibes without excessive editing manipulation. Case in point: the long, unbroken shot on the back of the tram that stretches over several minutes.

The cinematography is subtly crafted, with long takes and smooth tracking shots that let the actors' performances take center stage. This understated approach creates a sense of intimacy, almost as if we're right there beside Jesse and Celine, quietly observing an authentic moment between two people.

Linklater’s well-documented collaborative process also brings out rich, multidimensional performances from Hawke and Delpy, allowing their characters to feel alive and deeply relatable.

Of course, there’s the closing montage to consider as further proof of Linklater’s talents; recall how the camera revisits many of the spots previously traversed by Celine and Jesse, now empty of any human occupants, which showcases this director’s innate flair for visual storytelling and emotionally tethering the audience to his characters.

For a film so predicated on philosophical ideas, Before Sunrise has a high bar to clear in the themes department, which it does effortlessly. What is this picture about? Plenty. For starters, seeking permanence in a world of impermanence, inevitable change, and death. “(The) couple’s conversation is preoccupied with death, transience, and the fragility of life,” wrote Slant Magazine critic Dan Jardine. “The couple search for evidence of things that can persist. Staying awake in defiance of that harbinger of mortality—the night—hoping to cheat the death of each day by stealing the time that they shouldn’t even be having together, their conversations inevitably swing back to all the proofs that they see around them of the ephemeral, particularly in the realm of human relationships, where nothing sticks, where disintegration and collapse seem to be the norm.”

The film examines the temporal constraints of our existence and the fleeting nature of time. The ephemeral 12 hours the characters spend together underscores how quickly life goes by and how fast an opportunity can pass. Time itself is a thematic element and motif constantly revisited (and it’s thematically fitting that these time-obsessed young characters are placed within a timeless Old World city).

Recall how Jesse refers to their brief encounter as a kind of time travel experiment. Jesse later remarks: “It's all these people talking about how great technology is, and how it saves all this time. But, what good is saved time if nobody uses it?” Speaking about a dead girl’s gravesite in the cemetery, Celine says: “She was only 13 when she died. That meant something to me, you know? I was that age when I first saw this. Hmm. Now I'm ten years older and she's still 13, I guess.” Jesse comments: “I mean, just once, I'd love to see, some little old lady save up all her money, to go to the fortune teller, and she'd get there, all excited about hearing her future, and the woman would say, ‘Um-humm. Tomorrow, and all your remaining days will be exactly like today. A tedious collection of hours.’”

One particular conversation suggests that the couple is trying to thwart time and explore beyond the confines of temporal existence, even if momentarily. Jesse: “I feel like this is, uh, some dream world we're in, y'know.” Celine: “Yeah, it's so weird. It's like our time together is just ours. It's our own creation. It must be like I'm in your dream, and you in mine, or something. Jesse: “And what's so cool is that this whole evening, all our time together, shouldn't officially be happening.” Celine: “Yeah, I know. Maybe that's why this feels so otherworldly.”

Ponder how Jesse quotes W.H. Auden and his poem As I Walked Out One Evening: “O let not Time deceive you/You cannot conquer Time/In the burrows of the Nightmare/Where Justice naked is/Time watches from the shadow/And coughs when you would kiss/In headaches and in worry/Vaguely life leaks away/And Time will have his fancy/To-morrow or to-day.”

Criterion Collection essayist Michael Koresky wrote: “Before Sunrise…flies in the face of other youthful love stories for the thematic prominence it gives to the passage of time. Most twentysomethings think they’ll live forever, but the one-night stroll through Vienna of young Celine and Jesse is marked by both the filmmaker’s and the characters’ constant awareness that their time, both here and on earth, is limited.”

Before Sunrise espouses the perks of living life spontaneously and seizing the moment. Ponder how the couple adapts to their limited environment and acts uninhibitedly despite these limitations. Both Celine and Jesse decide on the spur of the moment to depart the train and forget their rules and restrictions. They also randomly encounter three artists along their travels—a palm reader, a street poet, and a belly dancer. Jesse and Celine spontaneously engage with each of them and their art.

Additionally, the film questions the unpredictable nature of fate versus happenchance. Were Celine and Jesse destined to meet like star-crossed lovers, or was this just a random event that won’t mean much in the scope of their lives? (You’ll need to conveniently forget about the sequels for this query to be fully explored.)

Discovering yourself through the eyes of another person is a further takeaway. Remember Jesse’s telling rumination: “(So many people) are sick to death of being around themselves…So of course I'm sick of myself. But being with you, uh, it's made me feel like I'm somebody else.”

Celine and Jesse explore another fundamental problem: relationship rigor mortis. The pair discuss how, as couples age together, they can lose the ability to hear each other. But Celine and Jesse attempt to avoid this inevitable problem by spending only one night together.

Rewatching Before Sunrise, one particular message becomes all the more evident: the power of playacting. Per Dennis Lim in his Criterion Collection essay: “Jesse and Celine move past initial awkwardness by implicitly acknowledging the role-playing aspect of their impromptu date. He initiates a question-and-answer game, in which they take turns quizzing each other about sex and love. The verbal seduction drifts into strategic thought experiments—What would happen on an island with ninety-nine men and one woman? With ninety-nine women and one man?—that allow the opinionated twosome to get a fix on their respective worldviews. Late into the night, with time running out, they again use the indirection of play as disinhibitor and armor.”

Lim is referencing the famous role-playing scene toward the end of the movie involving imaginary phone calls. It’s enthralling how Jesse has to stay in character as Celine’s pretend friend while Celine speaks positive and negative words about him. It’s a clever way for both to reveal things about each other without discussing them directly, and it could be the best scene in the entire film.

In another scene, Jesse says: “I always think that I’m still this 13-year-old boy that doesn’t really know how to be an adult, pretending to live my life, taking notes for when I’ll really have to do it.” And revealing how engrossed with finality and death our female protagonist is, Celine remarks: “I always have this strange feeling that I am this very old woman laying down about to die. You know, that my life is just her memories, or something.”

Above all, this work examines the transformative power of genuine human intimacy, as evidenced by the film’s most memorable monologue, courtesy of Celine: “I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.” This suggests that divinity and meaning lie not within individuals but in the shared connections between them, emphasizing the intangible beauty of trying to understand and relate to others. It celebrates the effort to connect as inherently valuable, even if perfect understanding is unattainable.

Before Sunrise’s best bestowal to fans on its 30th birthday is its incredibly credible conversation and intellectually stimulating dialogue. The discourse between Celine and Jesse plays as realistic and authentic, as evidenced by its occasional stream-of-consciousness circuitousness, its focus on the mundane as well as the momentous, its mining of deeply philosophical matters, its lack of florid, overscripted language, and the absence of audience-friendly one-liners and groan-worthy catchphrases. Here’s a rare film romance that touches the head as well as the heart, a fresh-scented falling-in-love drama that avoids cheap mawkishness and predictable tropes.

But it’s often what’s not spoken aloud that further cement this as a masterwork. It boasts possibly the best “falling-in-love” moment in cinema history via the wordless sequence in the record shop, when, fascinatingly, as they listen to a Kath Bloom folk song, each character keeps stealing quick glances at the other with their eyes never meeting. And it later features one of the best kissing scenes ever in the movies: their first lip lock on the Ferris wheel. (A later osculation, when Jesse asks “Can I tell you a secret,” then quickly leans in and steals a smooch, is equally memorable.)

Before Sunrise is all the more amorously imbued because it’s set before the ubiquity of smartphones, which makes the uncertainty of their future rendezvous at the conclusion more gripping and heartfelt. What can be more romantic than, at the conclusion, not sharing their last names or contact information and simply promising to rendezvous in six months at the place they first met?

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The devil's in the details

It’s easy to forget how Jack Nicholson, now 87 years old, appearing publicly disheveled in recent photos and long retired from thespianism, took the cinema by storm in the 1970s: starting with his breakthrough performance in Easy Rider, the first of his five Academy Award acting nominations spanning six years, and culminating in an Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1976. In the middle of that spectacular run was his unforgettable portrayal as “Badass” Buddusky in Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail from 1973, a role the actor himself considered his best, rumor has it.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of The Last Detail, conducted last week, click here.

Buttressed by a stellar screenplay by Robert Towne boasting credible dialogue (The Last Detail was envelope-pushing for this era in its consistent use of profanity, with more use of the “F” word, spoken 65 times, than in any previous movie), based on Darryl Ponicsan's novel of the same name, the movie co-stars Randy Quaid as young sailor Larry Meadows and Otis Young as Richard "Mule" Mulhall. The yarn follows two U.S. Navy petty officers (Buddusky and Mulhall) assigned to escort Meadows to a naval prison after he is sentenced to eight years for attempting to steal $40 from a charity collection box. During their journey, the officers form a bond with the shy and naive Meadows, deciding to show him a good time before the hammer falls. The story blends humor and camaraderie with poignant reflections on authority, freedom, and the injustices of life. It’s a film that neatly fits into several different genres, including the road movie, the buddy picture, the dramedy, the iconoclastic anti-hero film, and the broader social commentary/criticism movie.

Consider what usually happens to characters by the end of a road movie. They typically undergo an internal transformation or develop toward a better or improved life during the journey and before reaching their destination. However, in The Last Detail, the main protagonists realize that reaching their destination is anticlimactic and soul-squelching, as it results in Meadows’ ultimate incarceration and Buddusky and Mulhall returning to their drab lives in the military.

In the Indicator/Powerhouse Blu-Ray edition of this film, essayist Michael Pattison wrote: “We really told that son of a bitch, though, didn’t we!’ Buddusky cries, a little too self-convinced, after he and Mulhall achieve a muted triumph over the lieutenant who registers Meadows at Portsmouth. As both men go their separate ways, however, Buddusky’s claim rings false: Mulhall’s promise that they’ll see each other again in Norfolk only underlines their final resignation. To be a lifer, here, is to advance from an already compromised position. Meaningful attachments to Meadows or not, these men are bound by the duties of self-preservation.”

Savvy filmic techniques emphasize the tonal pessimism prevalent in The Last Detail, including drab tones, washed-out colors, and an abundance of blacks and greys. A significant portion of the movie consists of scenes of watching, waiting, and standing around, evoking the sense that these characters’ lives are not progressing. Tight shots create a constricted, claustrophobic effect. The biting irony of using the military drum march in the opening credits and the Anchors Aweigh melody at the end of the film is also notable, as these are meant to be stirring pieces of music intended to reflect an honorable and proud military tradition; yet our three sailors certainly don’t represent that.

The Last Detail is ultimately a cogitation on the futility of rebellion against systems of authority. Buddusky embodies the anti-authoritarian attitude of the 1960s and 1970s, continuously challenging the limitations set by the Navy as well as societal expectations. His actions mirror a broader cultural dissatisfaction with rigid institutions and hierarchies. However, despite Buddusky and Mulhall’s attempts to offer Meadows moments of freedom and joy before his confinement, their efforts ultimately seem pointless, as the system they resist is too powerful and entrenched for any real change. Despite their indulgent distractions and attempts to literally and figuratively de-virginize Meadows, they and he cannot escape the realization that the boy’s fate is unavoidable, that his immutably vulnerable nature—the thing that endears the older men to him—will inevitably cause him to suffer all the more in a cruel world that chews up and spits out souls like Meadows.

Loss of personal freedom is both text and subtext here. The film examines how societal norms and institutional power diminish individual liberty. The characters are constrained by military rules and societal pressures, with Meadows’ imprisonment symbolizing a larger theme of both physical and emotional confinement. Ashby and his collaborators are reminding us that life itself can be a prison—a jail of our own making. By adhering to society’s rules, we keep ourselves spiritually caged. Being a prisoner of these societal conventions and institutional rules is isolating. By the end of the picture, all three characters are isolated, alienated figures. The oppressive nature of institutions is also evident: The military is portrayed as a cold, bureaucratic force that values rules over the well-being of individuals. This theme also critiques other societal systems that prioritize order and structure at the expense of personal dignity.

And yet, you could argue that the film suggests these restrictive rules and institutions are necessary to keep us in check from our basest instincts and to prevent us from becoming lawless, boundless Budduskys. Consider that the repressive institutions that Nicholson’s characters rebelled against in the 1970s may be corrupt, restrictive, or damaging, but they are necessary evils for society to function properly.

A fascinating psychological triangle emerges with this pairing. The three main characters can be seen as complementing and contrasting each other in psychological ways, particularly when explored through Freudian terms. They may represent the id, the ego, and the superego, with Meadows caught between the base instincts and impulsive nature of Buddusky (the id) and the moral conscience and sense of responsibility embodied by Mulhall (the superego).

Revisiting The Last Detail, there’s an inescapable sense that time is quickly running out. Recall how Meadows must decide swiftly who to choose at the brothel. When he believes he’s falling in love with his prostitute, the camera lingers on Meadows, as if urging him to speak up quickly before the moment slips away. And consider how the gathering darkness approaches rapidly in the penultimate scene in the snowy park. When Meadows attempts to escape, the audience holds its breath, wondering if Buddusky will load his gun in time.

Similar works

• On the Town (1949), also about three sailors on a brief shore leave who are determined to make the most of their time in the big city.
• Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's novel that critiques war and authority, blending dark humor with existential themes.
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), which shares an anti-authoritarian vibe and a charismatic central performance by Jack Nicholson, similar to The Last Detail.
• Road movies by Alexander Payne, including Sideways (2004), Nebraska (2013), and The Holdovers (2023).

Other films by Hal Ashby

• The Landlord (1970)
• Harold and Maude (1971)
• The Last Detail (1973)
• Shampoo (1975)
• Bound for Glory (1976)
• Coming Home (1978)
• Being There (1979)

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Cineversary podcast celebrates 30th birthday of Before Sunrise

Kim Krizan and Rob Stone

In Cineversary podcast episode #78, host ⁠Erik Martin⁠ celebrates the 30th anniversary of one of the greatest romance films of the last three decades, Before Sunrise, directed by Richard Linklater. Joining him in this installment is the film’s Oscar-nominated co-screenwriter Kim Krizan, author of Original Sins: Trade Secrets of the Femme Fatale; and filmmaker Rob Stone, a professor of film and television studies at the University of Birmingham in the UK and author of The Cinema of Richard Linklater: Walk, Don't Run. Together, they examine why Before Sunrise still matters, the many movies it influenced, its major themes, and much more.

To listen to this episode, click here or click the "play" button on the embedded streaming player below. Or, you can stream, download, or subscribe to Cineversary wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Learn more about the Cineversary podcast at www.cineversary.com and email show comments or suggestions to cineversarypodcast@gmail.com.

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