Ethan Hawke has spent three decades being praised for his romantic existentialism, but his own kid just gave the whole persona a brutal reality check.
In a clip circulating across TikTok and X this week, Hawke's son, actor Levon Hawke, recounts the moment he finally sat down to watch his father's 1995 cult classic "Before Sunrise." His verdict lands somewhere between affectionate roast and generational indictment — and the internet has not stopped cackling since.
Levon, 23, admitted on a podcast that he'd somehow never seen the film that made his dad a Gen X heartthrob, so he queued it up expecting a masterpiece.
What he got, in his telling, was two hours of a guy and a girl wandering around Vienna having the most self-serious conversation in cinema history. "I was like, this is just people talking," he reportedly said, before questioning why anyone would romanticize a night of aimless strolling.
Within hours, the clip had racked up millions of views, with users stitching it alongside their own reactions to rewatching the movie as adults.
The consensus was split in the most internet way possible: half the commenters defended "Before Sunrise" as a sacred text, and the other half confessed Levon had a point.
One viral reply read, "I loved this movie until my younger cousin called it 'two broke people walking,' and now I can't unsee it." Hawke himself hasn't publicly responded, which is arguably the funniest possible move.
The actor has built a career on playing men who talk too much about love, mortality, and the passage of time — think "Before Sunset," "Boyhood," and last year's moody turns on streaming.
Having his own son dismiss the origin story as pretentious chatter is the kind of cosmic joke that writes itself.
Fans are already begging for a father-son commentary track.
It also lands at an awkward moment for the "Before" franchise, which has been teased for years as a possible fourth installment.
Director Richard Linklater has hinted at revisiting Jesse and Céline, and Hawke has said he's open to it — but the viral clip has sparked a fresh wave of debate about whether the series' navel-gazing romance still resonates with viewers raised on 15-second dopamine hits.
The irony is thick: a movie about a single fleeting night now being judged by an audience that can't sit through a slow scene without checking their phone.
He's leaned into the bit on social media, reposting reactions and joking that he's "ruined cinema" for a generation.
Whether he meant it as a genuine critique or a well-timed troll, the result is the same: a legacy film is suddenly trending with people who weren't alive when it came out, and Ethan Hawke is getting roasted by his own flesh and blood on the internet's main stage.
Our take: this is nepo-baby discourse done right.
Instead of defending the family brand, Levon threw a wrench into it and let the internet do the rest — and honestly, "Before Sunrise" survives just fine.
A movie that hinges on one long, talky night can withstand one kid calling it boring.
Final Thoughts
If anything, the roast just got more people to press play.