Ethan Hawke & Me

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(248 248 248 1); color: rgba(29 28 29 1)>When Andrew Bertaina first saw the 1995 Ethan Hawke-Julie Delpy film </span><em style=background-color: rgba(248 248 248 1); color: rgba(29 28 29 1)>Before Sunrise</em><span style=background-color: rgba(248 248 248 1); color: rgba(29 28 29 1)>-swiping the tape from his sister's bedroom-he was fifteen painfully shy and living a sheltered existence in small-town California. The movie cracked something open in him with its romantic European setting and its charming intelligent protagonists who fall in love with each other over the course of a day spent wandering the streets of Vienna. Within the movie's story seemed to lie a promise: that you could truly be known by another person that a relationship could be a never-ending conversation with someone who was both interested and interesting.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(248 248 248 1); color: rgba(29 28 29 1)>Fast-forward 25 years and Andrew's teenaged romanticism has been challenged by life's realities which have included a marriage a child a move across the country a divorce. Meanwhile the film's central relationship has also been challenged and complicated by two sequels. When Andrew decides to revisit the first film with a new partner and a bottle of wine-a rare date night for two single parents-he can't help but wonder: Will he still see himself in the movie? And perhaps more importantly will she?</span></p>