BEFORE WE GO
DIRECTOR: Chris Evans
CAST: Chris Evans, Alice Eve, Emma Fitzpatrick, Mark Kassen, Elijah Moreland
CLASSIFICATION: 10 PG L
RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes
RATING: 2 stars (out of 5)
David Rooney
If you’re going to make an ultra-naturalistic, two-character, walking-and-talking romance that tips its hat to Before Sunrise, the film that began Richard Linklater’s exquisite trilogy, then it’s best to avoid a script loaded with contrived situations and overwritten dialogue.
That’s the obstacle that hobbles Chris Evans’ wispy directing debut, Before We Go, almost from the start. Bland characters don’t help much either. Still, it does make New York City look nearly as pretty as the two leads, which might give it minimal cachet as a date movie.
Cinematographer John Guleserian’s limber camera conducts a love affair with the nighttime locations, and editor John Axelrad, brings gentle, fluttering rhythms to the action that furthers the script’s real-time illusion.
But a nice-looking package will only get you so far, and the insubstantiality of this actor-driven exercise makes it seem simultaneously modest and a vanity project.
Evans may have cast off his Captain America suit, but he’s fashioned himself another kind of hero in beautiful loser Nick, a jazz trumpeter with a heavy heart. We see him busking in the halls of Grand Central Station when gorgeous art consultant Brooke (Eve) makes a dash for the last New Haven train. Her distress upon missing it prompts him to rescue a lady in a jam.
Turns out Brooke’s handbag has been stolen with all her cash and cards, and she broke her phone running for the train. While she’s somewhat abrasive in response to Nick’s initial attempts to help, his gallantry won’t be deterred.
So begins a nocturnal odyssey that’s basically “Strangers in the Night,” heavy on the “doo-be-doo-be-doo” part.
The script concocts various ways – many of them transparently phoney – to keep the pair together and talking long enough to reveal their respective struggles and sorrows. There’s an abortive bid to retrieve Brooke’s bag from a Chinatown fencing operation, an improvised ploy to raise cab fare by posing as the musical entertainment at an upscale hotel, and a mood-deflating visit to a party Nick has been avoiding, where he encounters his former flame, Hannah (Fitzpatrick).
A reason slowly emerges why Brooke needs to be home by morning. That prompts much soul-searching about her marriage and whether or not it’s worth saving. Likewise, Nick faces truths about his lingering emotional impasse and the crisis of confidence that could affect his chances at an audition. Both actors are appealing. They show as much depth and sensitivity as is possible with these thinly conceived roles – The Hollywood Reporter
If you liked Serendipity or Just Like Heaven, you will like this.