Before We Go

Before We Go is a 2014 American romantic drama film directed by Chris Evans in his directorial debut. It stars Evans (who also co-produced) and Alice Eve as two strangers stuck in Manhattan, New York City, for the night.

The film had its world premiere in the Special Presentations section of the 39th Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2014. It was released on video on demand on July 21, 2015, and had a limited theatrical release in the United States on September 4, 2015.

Plot
Busking in Grand Central Terminal, Nick Vaughan sees Brooke Dalton drop her phone while running to catch a train. She misses the train, so returns to the lobby where Nick returns her broken phone. He asks if she needs help, but she declines.

Nick then finds Brooke standing outside the terminal, who confesses she has just been robbed and is trapped in the city. He offers to pay for a cab to take her to Boston but his cards don't work. When Nick tries to call a friend to lend him the money, he finds his phone is dead. He offers to get Brooke a room for the night, but she insists she must reach Boston by morning.

Deciding to help Brooke find her purse, Nick tracks it down at a sweatshop that deals in stolen purses. He heads inside to retrieve it while she uses a payphone to call her husband. He identifies her purse by initials Brook's stepson wrote inside. But while he's trying to negotiate a price, the police, sent in by Brooke, spook the crooks, who punch Nick and run out with the bags.

Nick and Brooke then head for Nick's friend's wedding reception, hoping to borrow money. Along the way, they both open up about why they're in New York. Brooke had just sold a painting and was going to surprise her husband by coming home early. Nick has an audition for a band he has been dreaming of playing with.

Instead of reaching the reception, they stumble upon an event where they are mistaken for members of the band. Nick and Brooke perform "My Funny Valentine" and flee when the real band shows up. After their last-ditch attempt to get a bus to Boston fails for lack of funds, Brooke borrows a phone, calls a friend, and begs her to retrieve the letter she has left for her husband that she does not want him to read.

Elated that her problem is now solved, Brooke offers to accompany Nick to the reception and pretend to be his girlfriend in front of his ex, Hannah. There, once Nick sees Hannah and meets her new boyfriend, he leaves abruptly. Outside, he explains this was the first time he had seen Hannah since she rejected his marriage proposal and broke up with him six years ago.

At Brooke's insistence, Nick goes back to speak to Hannah and discovers that she is pregnant, so he finally gets closure.

Wandering around the city, the two find a psychic who is still open. He tells Brooke she could walk away from her situation, and have a future with Nick. As Nick and the psychic chat, Brooke uses his phone to call her friend, and finds out she couldn't retrieve the letter.

After leaving the psychic, Brooke reveals that months earlier, she discovered emails showing her husband was cheating on her. She didn't confront him, but continued to watch the affair through the emails. After a time the emails stopped, and it appeared he had ended the relationship. But when he took a business trip to Atlanta, she discovered the woman had invited him to meet while on the trip.

Devastated, she wrote him a letter ending their marriage and went to New York for work. However, during her trip when she called her husband and he said he was coming home early, she realized he must have broken ties with his mistress. Nick reveals he isn't going to go to his audition in the morning.

At a restaurant, Nick tells Brooke that her husband will most likely understand why she wrote him the letter. She says she still loves him, and sneaks out to try to catch a cab, worried about the possible end of her marriage.

When Nick appears, she blurts out that she was going to try to fly to her mothers, and maybe back to London. Frustrated that Brooke tried to bail on him, they argue. But they finally decide to go to Nick's friend's hotel room, where they unwind from the night's adventures. They then share a kiss, write on the back of paintings in the room (a reference to an earlier encounter with a painting with erotic writing on its back) and reflect on their night. Brooke again asserts that she still loves her husband, and can't give up without fighting for their marriage.

In the morning, they return to the train station. Just before they part, Nick makes a pretend call from a phone booth. Using it as a "time machine" he calls himself in the past, saying he will meet a woman and "you will need her more than she needs you." They share one last kiss and finally part.

On her way home, Brooke finds a guest service paper they had filled out at the hotel. On the bottom it says, "Turn over". After reading what is on the back, she smiles.

Cast

 * Chris Evans as Nick Vaughan
 * Alice Eve as Brooke Dalton
 * Emma Fitzpatrick as Hannah Dempsey
 * Mark Kassen as Danny
 * Daniel Spink as Tyler
 * Elijah Moreland as Cole
 * John Cullum as Harry
 * Scott Evans as Concierge

Production
The film, originally titled 1:30 Train, was first announced in August 2013, when Chris Evans signed on to star, as well as make his directorial debut. In October Alice Eve signed on to play the female lead.

Filming began in December 2013 in Manhattan's Lower East Side and lasted for 19 days.

In July 2014, it was announced that the film would premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, and that the title had been changed to Before We Go.

The film is scored by Chris Westlake.

Release
The film had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2014. Prior to the premiere it was announced Radius-TWC had acquired all distribution rights to the film. The film then went on to screen at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 22, 2015. The film was released on video on demand on July 21, 2015, and in theaters in a limited release on September 4, 2015.

Home media
Before We Go was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 3, 2015, and was added to Netflix Instant Streaming on March 1, 2016.

Reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 27% based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 2.7/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Chris Evans' directorial debut is modest to a fault, with a threadbare story and minimal style leaving his and Alice Eve's likable performances adrift in New York City with nowhere to go." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 31 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".