Before We Go

Plot

While busking in Grand Central Terminal, Nick Vaughan (Chris Evans) sees a woman running by to catch the 1:30 a.m. train to Boston drop and break her phone. She misses the train and is forced to return. Nick returns the phone to the woman, Brooke (Alice Eve). When he finds her standing outside the terminal she confesses that 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 credit cards are declined. When he tries to call a friend to come loan him the money he finds his phone has died. Nick offers to try to pay for a room for Brooke to stay in overnight, but she insists that she needs to return home before the morning.

Nick decides to help Brooke find her missing purse. The two are able to track it down at a sweatshop that deals in stolen purses, but for his efforts to retrieve the purse Nick is punched in the face. The two try and go to Nick's friend's wedding, hoping he will loan them money, and instead end up at an event where they are mistaken for members of the band. Nick and Brooke perform My Funny Valentine before being forced to flee when the real band shows up. After their last-ditch attempt to get a bus to Boston fails as they don't have enough money, Brooke borrows a man's phone and calls a friend, whom she begs to go to her house and retrieve a 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 go to Nick's friend's wedding and pretend to be his girlfriend in front of his ex, Hannah. At the reception, Nick sees Hannah, but after being introduced to her new boyfriend, he leaves abruptly. Outside Nick tells Brooke that he hadn't seen Hannah in six years since he went to propose to her and she broke up with him. At Brooke's insistence, Nick goes back to speak to Hannah and discovers that she's pregnant and that their relationship is truly over. Wandering around the city, the two find a psychic who is still open. After he reads her future, he allows Brooke to use his phone and she learns her friend could not get into her home to retrieve the letter.

After they leave the psychic's place, Brooke reveals to Nick that she discovered that her husband was cheating on her. Though he ended the relationship, she discovered that he was going to see his mistress again. Devastated, she wrote him a letter ending the marriage and went to New York for work. However, during her trip she received a phone call from her husband saying he was coming home early and realized that he had ended the relationship for good.

At a restaurant Nick tells Brooke that her husband will most likely understand that what he did was wrong and that if he doesn't, that's that. They then go to Nick's friend's hotel room. Together they write on the back of paintings in the room (a reference to an earlier encounter with a painting with erotic writing on the back of it). They then share a kiss and reflect on their night.

In the morning they return to the train station where they are about to part. Suddenly, Nick picks up a phone from a phone booth and, like an earlier joke, uses it as a "time machine" and pretends to call himself, saying that he will meet a woman that he should stay with for the night. They share one last kiss and finally depart. On her way home, Brooke finds a guest service paper that she and Nick filled out at the hotel. On the bottom it says "turn over," and after doing so, she smiles at what she reads, though the message itself is left ambiguous.

Cast

Production

The production was first announced in August 2013, when Chris Evans signed on to star, as well as make his directorial debut. Further casting continued in October when Alice Eve signed on to play the female lead.

Filming began in December 2013 in Manhattan's Lower East Side and took 19 days to shoot.

In July 2014, it was announced that the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival had selected the film to premiere at the festival, but had changed its title 1:30 Train to Before We Go.

Music

The film is scored by Chris Westlake.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the 2013 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.

Critical reception

Upon the release, the film received generally negative reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, 23% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 26 reviews.