We Hate Hank?

 ... no we don't.

We rather like him, anagram fans.

Ethan Hawke is one of those actors, like Richard Gere, say, or even Hugh Grant (though on a totally different level), who has thinkpieces written about him, because he's not just an actor, he's a representative of something, he's a story within a story.

You're never totally totally sure that he's excellent (although, with Hawke, you're pretty certain) but that doesn't really matter.

Looking at his filmography,  I've seen 12 Hawke films. I like nearly all of them. I love a lot of them.

Some might say he's lucky that, by his association with Richard Linklater, he's part of some truly great, transcendent cinema. But Linklater's just as lucky. It's the Scorsese/De Niro of our age.

Hawke seems nearly always to be playing some version of himself - that's rather the point. A young man growing up on film, from Dead Poets' Society to Before Midnight and Boyhood. He's nearly always some kind of "good", some kind of "hero", albeit he's annoying and insecure, selfish and error-prone. A sweaty, geeky, neurotic normality combined with sharp intelligence.

He plays an author, an absentee father, a guy who's marriage to a beautiful wife breaks down, he plays imperfect and pretentious.

He's not completely unrecognised (I'd thought he was) he has writing Oscar nominations for work on the 'Before' trilogy, a couple of Best Supporting Nominations for Training Day and Boyhood.

I caught a scene from Boyhood on TV yesterday - it kind of summed so much of Hawke up - it's early in the film, it's when he takes his kids bowling and he's telling Mason he doesn't need the sidebars - life doesn't give you sidebars. He's telling the kids their mother is "a piece of work" in the most affectionate way imaginable, he's explaining his absence, swearing and donating to the swear jar. It's one of many wonderful scenes in the film. You don't know at this stage if he's going to be a shitty dad or a great one, but you hope it's the latter, and so it turns out to be.

Because of his authorship and his role in the writing of the 'Before' films, but also just because of how he is, I watch so much of his scenes thinking he's truly giving the audience something of himself.

With the wrong actor, that might be awful, but it's what makes him great.

I know a couple of film fans who initially weren't charmed by Before Sunrise because, basically, Hawke's character was too annoying, but as the three films progress, they were won over, as they realised that was almost the whole point.
The character of Jesse and Celine are just about the truest you'll ever come across in film - it can make other so-called realistic scenes quite hard to watch afterwards.

What are my favourite five Hawke movies, counting 'Before' as one, which is a bit of a cheat.

Dead Poet's Society
Boyhood
Gattaca
Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight
 .... Hmm, then it's a bit of a toss-up, but I think I'll go for Reality Bites, for old times' sake.