Brief Encounter- the film

I agree! It’s perfect for a rainy winter afternoon- especially if there’s an open fire to sit by.

There’s another thread at the moment about favourite Hollywood films and if there are young pps on this thread I really recommend trying some of these classic old films - they’ve stood the test of time.

Sometimes the black and white photography and lighting can be super-glamorous.

Oh I love that film - I watch it probably once a year on a rainy can’t really go for a walk on the hills afternoon. Plus I absolutely love an old black and white movie.

I laugh like a loon when she shoves the mince pie into her own eye 😂

Yes, I think the outcome was probably different if the mother left without the children. There were also cases until amazingly recently of the courts refusing to allow women to keep their children with them if they had left the father to embark on a lesbian relationship.

I've loved it ever since I watched it in Film Studies as a teenager. I think because I was forced to watch it all the way through I ended up enjoying it. If I'd not properly committed to watching it I'd probably think it was boring.

I don't understand the attraction with Alec though, her husband was much better! So that was a bit of a headscratcher for me....but I might be alone there!

Gosh. I find both of them very attractive, in different ways. Trevor Howard was excellent in Green for Danger and The Third Man. For anyone looking for another classic black and white film with a compelling love story and terrific music, you can't do better than The Third Man, by the way.

Gasp0de - oh I must’ve got it wrong. We know someone aged 82 whose mother left and didn’t see him until he was 18 so presumably the father persuaded the courts. Shocking really.

It's a beautiful film, it's so evocative of that period, and I think a lot of people (me included) can empathise with that feeling of "what if ...?" It's one of the films that has had me really thinking about the lives of the main protagonists before they met, when/as they met - and after they parted.

I like This Happy Breed too - I read an article where there were photographs from 1944 and from the present day of various locations in which the film was shot. That was interesting.

Not in the 1940s, surely? That's how it was in the early Victorian period and then the law changed. My grandmother left her abusive husband in the mid 40s and took the children with her. My grandfather sued her for divorce on grounds of desertion. She could have counter-sued on grounds of his treatment of her (and I think also the children) but didn't because it would have got a lot of publicity (all divorces were reported in detail in the newspapers back then). Because he won he didn't have to pay her a penny in maintenance. She could have got a court order to make him pay maintenance for the children but she didn't (couldn't face it, I think) and he never paid a penny for them, nor did he ever see them or have any contact with them again. What an absolute bastard. However, as far as I know there was never any question that she might lose custody. That's probably the one thing that would have galvanised her into going to court.

So sad. She never married again and could scarcely talk about him. My Dad never talked about him to me or my brother, not once. He told my Mum shortly after they started going out and then I think never spoke of him again.

@Ketzelethats such an important point about being written by a gay man in that time.

But life is so different nowadays. Back then, when divorce was a disgrace to the entire family people often had to choose between their own personal happiness and the 'reputation' of themselves and their family.

Yes and also if the wife left she automatically lost custody of the children and her ex-husband could prevent her seeing them until they were 18. That was a powerful motivation not to leave.

I'm team DH, it's a lovely film. Must be about time I watched it again.

I think if they had got together it might have been dull eventually.

Isn't part of the excitement that you shouldn't be having lunch/going to the cinema together?

Quite - it’s about real life as opposed to romantic fantasy. Lots of people’s relationships are a bit dull but life is complicated and nuanced - it’s rarely a simple case of ‘I’ve met someone I fancy more so I’m ditching the family without a backwards glance ’.

@Orangesandlemons77 YABU - sorry OP, but I'm also with your DH on this one and I love this film. I met my DH on a train (when they were still the slam-door variety) so it might have a particular resonance for me, but our encounter wasn't that "brief" - 44 years and still counting ...! 😍

I don't think the film is approving of emotional affairs at all. I love how it draws us from the early days, when the new friendship is bright and innocent and Laura actually tells her husband she met a nice man, through the development to a chaste romance and then to them being on the verge of becoming sexual, where the entry of an outside observer suddenly reveals them as tipping into the tawdry, and makes them feel sickened with themselves.

I love, love, love how the husband is gentle and understanding, and happy to live with his own uncertainty in order to preserve his marriage. I think we are meant to sympathise with Laura's boredom with her routine life, and with the excitement of falling for Alec, and for her decision to rebuild life with her husband and children. It is gently understanding rather than righteous. It is happy to paddle in moral ambiguity.

Of course, this was written in 1945 by a gay man, who certainly understood the pains and pleasures of secret love. That gives it an extra layer, a depth. And of course the music is amazing.

Railway stations are very poignant places - places of goodbyes, exciting meetings and reunions etc. Airports too, I guess, but stations are more romantic. I think the steam trains helped!

Why ask for the moon when we can have the stars...
Love now Voyager

@TheignT it was very unusual for a woman to carry on working outside the home,.... it sounds as though she always wanted to wait for the chap in America but it didn't end up doing so. She must've thought 'what if'? a fair bit.

Yes, similar story for me. I can't watch it now.
Oh, don't ever watch Bridges of Madison County😥

I absolutely think he was- it’s just his acting persona and the All-American roles he typically played.

I remember seeing him being on a chat show, maybe Parkinson. He seemed such a lovely man. If I remember his wife was with him. I remember him talking about his service jn the war, he joined the air force and was an officer.

He seemed like a genuinely nice man.

My unhappy grandmother was meant to marry my grandfather's best friend. Not an suspicious start. He went off to America to make his fortune and intended to come back for her. He asked grandfather to look after her for him. Classic mistake.

Things didn't get off to a good start, day GF went back to work after the wedding he was eating his breakfast and told her she could have anything she wanted she just had to ask, she'd left her job on marriage as was expected.

He got back home and was eating his dinner when she announced she could have what she wanted without asking as she'd got her job back. Apparently he wasn't impressed but it didn't last, within a year she was the mother of twins and trapped.

It was never meant to be was it.

Thanks - and I think this is part of it. He was no slouch academically (Princeton graduate in architecture) but yes, he has a dumb, slow-witted acting persona which winds me up. His characters typically say “Why, just a minute!” before any utterance.

He has this “aww shucks” way of acting that can be endearing but it could definitely be that which annoys people. Like he acts a bit stupider or slower than he is.