Before Sunset

What if you had a second chance with the one that got away?

Nine years have passed since the events of Before Sunrise, when Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) had met in Vienna. Since then, Jesse has written a novel, This Time, inspired by his time in Vienna with Celine, and the book has become a minor success, with Jesse doing a book tour. The last stop of the tour across Europe is Paris, and Jesse is doing a reading at the bookstore Shakespeare and Company. As Jesse talks with his audience, flashbacks are seen of him and Celine in Vienna; the memories of their night together have clearly remained with him despite it being nine years later. Celine appears in the audience and sees him and he, in turn, recognizes her. Jesse has a short time before his plane departs, and invites Celine to share it with him.

Celine said: "Memory's a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past."

As they talk, each reveals what has happened since their first meeting. Both are now in their early thirties. Jesse, now a writer, is married and has a son. Celine has become an advocate for the environment, lived in America for a time, and has a boyfriend, a photojournalist. It becomes clear in the course of their talk, both are dissatisfied to varying degrees with their lives. Jesse reveals that the only reason that he remains married is how much he loves his son. Celine says that she does not see her boyfriend very much because he is so often on assignment.

As they recall their prior meeting in Vienna, they slowly approach the subject of why they did not meet as promised, six months after their first encounter. It turns out that Jesse had returned to Vienna, as promised, but Celine did not, because her grandmother had suddenly died before the scheduled date of the meeting. Because Jesse and Celine had never exchanged addresses, there was no way for them to communicate with each other and to learn what the other was doing, or what had happened.

Their conversation as they traverse Paris places them in various venues, including a café, a garden, a bateau mouche, and Jesse's hired car for his stay in Paris. Their old feelings for each other are slowly rekindled, even with tension and regret over the missed meeting earlier, as they realize that nothing else in their lives has matched their one prior night together in Vienna. Jesse even admits that he wrote the book in the distant hope of meeting Celine again one day. She says that she felt pain from reading his book. At one point, in the hired car, during a tense moment when Jesse is angry, Celine reaches her hand out to touch Jesse, but pulls back just as he turns to her.

In the concluding scene, Celine and Jesse arrive at her apartment. Jesse puts a CD by Nina Simone on the stereo system. Celine dances by herself to the song "Just in Time" as Jesse watches her. As Celine imitates Nina Simone, she slowly says to Jesse:

"Baby ... you are gonna miss that plane."

As the camera slowly pans in, Jesse looks like a man gloriously happy for the first time in years, and he responds simply with

"I know."