In director Richard Linklater’s bookend to his 1995 film "Before Sunrise," Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprise their roles as Jesse and Celine. In that film, they met on a train in France as traveling students. Reluctant to say goodbye when they arrive at Celine’s departure point, they instead spend Jesse’s last night in Europe before he returns to the United States on a capricious visit to Vienna walking and talking. Their instant connection as they share the hours before sunrise is the stuff of the best romantic fantasy, not driven by dreaminess and artificial moonlight but by intelligent, honest, amiable conversation and shared perception of life, spurred of course by physical attraction. The night ended at dawn with a promise to meet six months later.

Nine years later, Jesse is back in Europe, finishing a book signing tour for his successful novel about a couple who shared a brief encounter and the fictional outcome of their affair. At the bookstore that is his last stop before an evening flight back to the states, Celine shows up. After a fleeting awkward moment, they tentatively recover the connection they shared that both have realized was one that does not often come along in life.

Their reasons for not hooking up as planned six months after their first meeting are one of the many things they explore during the time remaining before his flight back home. Sweet, touching, genuine, and utterly romantic, they analyze and investigate the same territory as on their first meeting: love, sex, spirituality, fun, and the meaning of life. A gamut of emotions come tumbling out of both of them, some comfortably and smoothly, others expose their psychic sadness and wounds. With laughter, tenderness, and tears, they move toward the sunset hour of parting and we are drawn in along with them to feel their hope, longing, and apprehension.

Both are older and wiser, at first spouting the empty platitudes that we learn to recite: all is well, doing just fine, thanks. Slowly uncovering their lingering mutual bond, Linklater’s story splendidly fleshes out his fascination, and ours, with the little twinklings and minutia of every day, the flights of imagination, and the nature of memory that was also central to his "Waking Life." He brings "Before Sunrise" to its next sweet chapter and sustains it’s enticing promise with sophistication and maturity. The film delightfully articulates the significance and the yearning for simple, wonderful, conversation with someone you truly enjoy being with. It may not pay the rent or fix life’s other problems but it is a precious thing, and when it happens, as we see here, it is perhaps a joy one can build a dream on.

Delpy and Hawke have the sturdy chemistry that infuses Jesse and Celine with undeniable genuineness and offer a slice of the small, important, moments that form the best of what life offers. Her Nina Simone imitation at the conclusion is sheer perfection. In the visual style bathed in the golden tones of gathering dusk, a magical quality surfaces and leaves one breathless.