Brief Encounter (1945)

**SPOILERS** Meeting quite by accident at the Milford train station British housewife Laura Jesson, Celi Johnson, got a speck of grit stuck in her eye that fellow passenger Dr. Alec Harvey,Trevor Howard, quickly came to her aid and washed out. Alec then slowly starts to get these strong feeling about the sweet and somewhat shy, as well as married, middle-age woman that in no time at all turns into an uncontrollable, by both Laura as well as Alec, love affair that in the end if not checked my well break up both of their marriage's.

Even though both Alec and Laura are married, not to each other, we only get to see Laura's husband and family in the movie which is shown in a long flashback, that takes up almost the entire film, from only Laura's point of view. After that innocent meeting at the train station the two always end up meeting on a Thursday when Laura travels to Milford to buy groceries and Alec has the afternoon off from work. Alec a doctor at the Milford hospital has a wife and family who we never get to see but sense are very much in love with him. Alec's life starts to take a sudden turn away from them as he starts to slowly fall in love with Laura.

You never once get the impression that Alec and Laura are willing to leave their wife and husband so that they can get married to each other. The two star-struck lovers only want to keep their affair secret and live double-lives but the guilt of the affair consumes Laura. For the first time in her marriage Laura lied to her husband Fred, Cyril Raymond, about her being in love with another man. Even though she admitted it to Fred in an almost whimsical way, that Fred took as a joke, Laura also realized that no matter how much she was in love with Alec, and he with her, in the end it would only lead to nothing but heartbreak for her as well as everyone, Alec together with her and his families, involved.

It was later when Alec got a job at his brothers new hospital in Johannesburg South Africa that both he and Laura could finally break up their affair by the two never having to as much as cross their paths again. Even saying goodbye to each other for the last time was never to happen when the two were interrupted at the train station by Laura's chatter-house friend Dolly Mesitter, Everly Gregg. Dolly's non-stop talking prevented the two from having the last few minutes together with each other but at the same time also prevented Laura from throwing herself on the tracks, by momentarily keeping her mind off the fact that Alec was about to leave her, as Alec's train left the station.

Extremely moving adult drama about two persons who find out only too late in life that they were meant for each other but missed the boat, or train, when it came into the station and have to do with what they have: try to forget they ever met no matter how much sorrow and grief it would bring them. Both Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard were touchingly effective as the star-struck lovers Laura and Alec who knew that their affair was doomed from the start and just had to accept what fate had handed them: try to forget that brief encounter they had one fateful evening in the railroad station outside of Milford.

Fmovies: Sir David Lean has left a genuine mark on cinema; he remains one of the most renowned and most celebrated directors in cinema. Some argue that he is the finest British director of all-time. He is a director who has made some of the finest classics ever, including the likes of, Bridge on the River Kwai, Great Expectations, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Oliver Twist. That is just to name a few, yet people always forget the outstanding and underrated delight, Brief Encounter.

Brief Encounter is a momentary story, however a film of which generations of film aficionados and the average film-viewer hold dear to their hearts. It was one of David Lean's first films and remains one of the most "British" films of all-time. It follows the story of Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) who by chance meets Dr. Alec Harvey (legendary British actor Trevor Howard) and it quickly becomes obvious that they have fallen in love, which swiftly develops into a full-blown affair. The film remains sympathetic towards the two main characters, both actors wonderfully act out the guilt they feel for deceiving their marriages. Yet, the both of them can not retain from showing their love for one another; the film revolves around the infamous set-piece of a train station and tea-room.

Brief Encounter was a highly controversial film upon release, even becoming banned in Ireland. Some may wonder why a film like Brief Encounter was controversial, there's no questionable content whatsoever and there is not one single explicit scene in film. Yet, the film does hold a beautiful sexual tension and shows sums up the "guilt-ridden love" which the protagonists feel for one another.

Brief Encounter is beautifully shot, evenly paced and forcefully depressing, while remaining beautifully layered in charm and wit. The characters are splendidly scripted and then crafted with elegance. Brief Encounter is a film that has prowess; a classic piece of film-making and a film that has "classic" written all over it. Brief Encounter is heart wrenchingly honest when showing emotion and being open on the phrase "love is a force beyond the power of nature". Brief Encounter is bittersweet and poignant, without being soppy, sloppy or over-sentimental.

Brief Encounter is a film that even today gets hailed as a classic of British cinema. It is also certainly a film in which the British Film Institute and British public hold dear to their classic cinema traditions. A highly recommended film and a romance that beats the cheesy, modern-day blockbuster romances, of which the market is horribly cluttered with.

For me,a film addicted"Brief Encounter" is a polished diamond.It's the most perfect romance:You don't see lovers climbing balconys or dying in each others hand.What you see in "Brief Encounter"is two ordinary people in love.Only two normal people who stumble on one another in a railroad station and discover that they have more things in common,then meets the eye.So they started to see each other once a week,but their love are doomed,because they are both married and have very good lives.Celia Johnson is a sparklling gem as a house wife repressed who finds a man so repressed as she.That leads us to Trevor Howard.I know the reason of Celia's anguish.A normal woman simply could not resist to those eyes and the perfect face of Trevor,who embodies every english man in a simple wave,or just laughing in the theater.David Lean's soberb direction and Noel Coward's perfect story give space to show that you don't need to be Romeo And Juliet to tell that love's a good cause to fight,even when the fight is lost

Brief Encounter fmovies. Steam ... cut-glass accents ... Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto ... the refreshment room at Milford Junction ... "the shame of the whole thing - the guiltiness, the fear ..." - it all adds up to David Lean's famous film treatment of the Noel Coward tale of love blossoming and withering at a suburban railway station. Laura Jesson is a complacent middle-class housewife who gets a piece of grit in her eye one day and is helped by Doctor Alec Harvey, and the romance begins.

Coward's screenplay is characteristic of his oeuvre. There is the neat precision of the circular plot, beginning and ending with the brainless intrusion of Dolly Messiter, and the matching sub-plot of the Albert-Mrs. Bagot courtship. There are tongue-in-cheek self-references (on the cinema screen, "Flames Of Passion" coming shortly) and the trademark Cowardian grounding in exaggerated Englishness ("One has one's roots, after all"). Most typical of all is that overwrought cascade of middle-class vocabulary (" ...so utterly humiliated and defeated, and so dreadfully, dreadfully ashamed"). Coward patronises working-class people abominably. Albert and Mrs. Bagot amble effortlessly through their romance because, bless them, they are simple folk. Alec and Laura suffer torments, having so much more sensitivity, and, you see, they have reputations to lose ("the furtiveness and the lying outweigh the happiness").

Having made the transition from editor to director in 1942, Lean was at the helm for the fourth time for "Brief Encounter", all four films being Coward projects - and a highly creditable job he made of this one. The scene in which Alec explains coal-dust inhalation and Laura falls in love is a model of sensitive direction. Reflections of Laura's face in the train window and the make-up mirror suggest in visual terms the existence of her 'other self', the id to her ego. Thundering steam trains and Rachmaninov stand for the irrepressible sexual urge. Stephen Lynn's flat, with its bachelor urbanity, contrasts cleverly with Laura's safe, staid home and safe, staid husband Fred ("I don't understand!") Alec's silent hand on Laura's shoulder is wonderfully poignant, the suppressed emotion eclipsed by stupid Dolly Messiter, her face filling the screen and 'wiping out' the great moment.

Sex has to be dealt with obliquely, but it is very much the driving-force of the film. "If we control ourselves, and behave like sensible human beings ..." offers Laura hopefully but hollowly. Neither man nor woman is capable of restraint, at least until after the climax in Stephen's flat. The boathouse and the little bridge hint furtively at sexual union. Other reviewers have declared the liaison to be 'unrequited' or 'unconsummated', but I am not so sure. In the grammar of 1940's cinema, the return to the love-nest of tousle-haired, hatless Laura is the equivalent, I would suggest, of our modern bedroom scene. Isn't that why Alec suddenly decides to take the job offer?

It really pleases me to see the very positive responses here to this gem of a movie. I recently read Kevin Brownlow's epic, detailed biography of David Lean, and I'm less mystified as to how Lean went from intimate character dramas such as this one, and even GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OLIVER TWIST, to the big-screen epics which placed far more emphasis on scenery and very little on character. Lean had great problems with intimacy, and much preferred grandeur (he virtually abandoned his son, and didn't meet one of his grandchildren until she was about 30). I'm not knocking the epics, because I've enjoyed them as well, but at the end of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA one knows about as much about Lawrence as one did about 3-1/2 hours earlier. ..unlike Alec and Laura in this film, whom we know very well after 1-1/2 hours, or Pip and Miss Havisham in EXPECTATIONS, characters who leapt off the screen and endeared themselves to us (it also helped that some really gifted actors & actresses played these roles).

I never tire of BRIEF ENCOUNTER - it's one of the screen's great romances, perhaps because it doesn't quite end "happily ever after". It remains simple, honest, and unforgettable.

I didn't think I'd write this comment till I saw the 2 previous ones criticizing 'BE'. I don't know how much this movie would appeal to camp-followers of an in-your-face go-getting culture. Some of the frequent adjectives describing this movie is 'civilised', 'restrained', 'noble'. To those who call this movie dated, I'll say that these are indeed qualities which are hardly followed & upheld today, especially in movies. However movies do reflect contemporary social mores, & maybe the story of two illicit lovers sacrificing their love for something as obvious as home & family does not find to many buyers today.

For those who think a movie can convey some of the most intimate emotions, conflicts & visions known to us, those who believe 2 art forms (Rachmaninoff's 2nd, Lean's 4th) can coexist brilliantly, & finally for those who believed David Lean got body-snatched in mid-career to make over-blown nonsense like 'Dr. Zhivago' this is one of the best ways to spend 86 minutes!