At the beginning of the movie “Before Sunset,” Jesse Wallace, author of a best-selling book about a girl he spent one night with in Vienna nine years ago, answers to the press as to whether or not the characters in his book ever meet again, “I think how you answer that is a good test to see if you’re a romantic or a cynic.”

I think that’s why I love the movie so much—it leaves it open for you to interpret it how you want at the time you watch it.

The movie no doubt pulls on your emotions in one direction or another. Sometimes when I watch it, I can really get pulled into the whole bit about quashed hopes, dreams, and expectations and at other times not so much.

But, luckily, for me, in the end, of the many, many times I’ve seen it, it always ends happily for me.

Just as the movie fades to black and the credits roll, Jesse smiles at Celine as she dances to the song “Just in Time” by Nina Simone. It’s that smile that does it for me.

I don’t like to think about the practicality of it—him having to deal with his wife at home, what he is going to do with his son, would he and Celine even work out or would they eventually get tired of each other, etc.

But, I like to think regardless if it did or didn’t work out in the end, that he stays.

I would settle for even just a little longer. Even if he eventually got on the plane and went back to the obligations at home (which some may see as a “Bad ending”) I like to think that he at least stays a little longer and savors the moment.

He would at least have left with some sort of closure and maybe a little hope.

Having faith in love restored—that, to me, is a happy ending, too.