Lost in New York

Before We Go

A little over 20 years ago the world was introduced to very different kind of romance movie. The film was about a guy and a girl that meet on a train heading to Vienna. After some convincing, boy and girl spend the night walking the streets of the beautiful Austrian city. Discussing things such as love, life, and everything in between. The two form a quick bond and love for each other and…you know what, I won’t spoil it for you. Before Sunrise is a beautiful film by Richard Linklater which spawned just as equally beautiful sequels. Why do I bring this up you ask? Well some films after this have tried to capture this dynamic. Some of these copycats have done well, others have done not so well. Which of those categories does the 2014 film Before We Go?…we will see.

While playing his trumpet in the middle of Grand Central Station, Nick Vaughan (Chris Evans The Avengers) witnesses the frantic desperation of Brooke (Alice Eve Star Trek: Into Darkness) trying to catch the last train to Boston. Unfortunately for Brooke she has missed the last train to Boston and has lost her purse somewhere in New York City. Nick, being the valiant man he is, tries his best to try and help Brooke find her purse. The quest to find Brooke’s purse quickly turns into a night of revelation for both of them and a deep friendship is formed between the two strangers and maybe something more.

I will start this part of the review by quickly stating that I did not hate this film. As much as I am sure I am going to tear through this film during the course of this review, I did not hate this film. I actually felt really bad for this film because it did have so much potential. It was a sweet, low-key film that was a great break from Evan’s Marvel movie making which just happens to be his directorial debut. Another reason I felt bad for this film is because it tries so hard to play to the strengths of Before Sunrise, so much so that they include the same word in the title. Before We Go does deviate from the plotline of Before Sunrise a little bit, but at the end of the day the former tried to become the latter.

Taking a breath while in between Marvel films, Evans does give the audience a nice guy that is very easy to like. He is a preverbal “knight in shining armor” and is often referred to as Brooke’s hero, but there is not much depth to Nick. We find out that he is a budding jazz musician and is afraid of seeing his ex-girlfriend, however that is about it. Brooke is even more of a puzzle as Eve skates by this film with her looks. I understand the story takes place within the course of a couple of hours, but other films have pulled it off and with a movie I so tried to root for, it just failed so completely. I have read other critics say that there was no chemistry between the two leads and I have to disagree with that because they do seem to work well together, but the more you find out about the two characters the more you come to understand why the chemistry is not there.

As far as Evans’ directorial debut, I will say that there is a lot of promise here. Evans does a decent job trying to make the characters likable and seems to have an artsy side to his directing style. I did notice that he used a lot of close ups of the characters, trying to get as much emotion out of them as possible. Other than that, this wasn’t amazing but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world either.

Borrowing a lot of queues from Before Sunrise, Before We Go tries too hard to be liked. The film never really finds its own identity and in the process drives its audience to find romance somewhere else. I so wanted for this film to be decent, but there were just too many comparisons to Linklater’s film and not enough character development for me to even care what happens to Nick and Brooke after a little while.

The Verdict: Not Worth Your Time.