Brief Encounter- the film

Why do you keep watching it then 😆

I love Now Voyager.

Anyone else seen the Enchanted Cottage?

I like it, but then I very much like Celia Johnson and films from that era. Her best film imho is This Happy Breed which I’ve watched many times

I'm with The History Boys (watch their re-enactment of scenes from both these), I really love Brief Encounter and also Now Voyager.

I’m a big fan, of the insight it gives into those other times, and love to wallow in the tragic emotion without actually having the bad things happen to me.

Did anyone else see the Douthbank Centre? Full orchestra and a relative of Celia Johnson, who pointed out what I had missed was Noel Coward in the role of train station announcer. They also suggested a parallel interpretation, that the main characters were actually two men (which explained why the husband was at how waiting for ‘wife’ to come home and would add to the sordid mess of being ‘caught’ by the owner of the flat coming home unexpected.

It was not possible at the time to even suggest such illegal activity in a movie and so the man / women storyline was used. It seemed plausible to me, I have no way to verify this and notice none mentioning it on this thread.

Marrying whomever we want for love is a relatively new thing. Not that long ago marriages were 'arranged' for financial advantage or social advancement or even just security. It didn't matter that you didn't love or even fancy your marriage partner, you were supposed to work together as a couple. I think we, with our modern sensibilities, have lost sight a little of how life was for generations before.

Omg. I LOVE that film

It's shite and tries to normalise cheating. I hated it the first time I saw it decades ago too.

Or - she may have experienced exactly that but was now in the drudgery of marriage, it was a bit stale, children etc - her world was very small. Men who got to leave the house and their neighbourhood everyday wouldn’t necessarily have experienced it like that.

I like to hope that as her husband realised that she’d emotionally left him for a while, but did come back, that the both of them might have put in a bit more effort to remember those early days of courtship and marriage, and to understand that sometimes you need a bit more than the everyday.

So many women would have been widowed when this film came out. Others would have been left holding the baby by some feckless GI - or been whisked across the Atlantic to start a new life there. Some would be dealing with deeply damaged husbands and sons. Some would be struggling with being forced to give up the work and independence that the war had given them.

The world had been turned upside down. Everyone would have been sitting on their emotions for 6 years to try and get through. The work of rebuilding was starting.

I’m not really sure what I’m saying with all that. But that it’s a completely alien situation to us in 2025. Was it better? I don’t know. We see the struggles women have as single parents, or trying to create new blended families and how that so often goes wrong, especially for the children concerned.

Emotions are tricky things, bringing us great joy and great sadness, and often nothing much at all.

That’s life, I guess!

EuclidianGeometryFan · Today 12:23

I read an article about it years ago. The author said it was a propaganda piece, government sponsored, as just after the war too many people were having affairs or splitting up, and this film shows you that that is not the way to behave.

What nonsense! it is totally unbelievable that the team of writer director producer and stars would muddle a feature film and propaganda to send a message.

It was after the war. Labour Party etc.

I only watched that once but it was fantastic

It's been a long time since I saw it, but doesn't Laura briefly consider throwing herself in front of a train when it ends? That's a strong reaction if she really is only a little unhappy.

I was like that when I saw the spoof of the Ring - the real film just didn’t scare me…,loved brief accounter.

I like the contrast between the flirting of the cafe proprietress and the railway man against Laura and Alec

It reminds me a bit of the long running show Butterflies with Wendy Craig, which was also about a slow burning emotional affair.

I watched it again recently and thought that Alec was really predatory. He clearly knows what he's doing and is always pushing Laura further than she really wants to go, particularly the planned afternoon shag.

Technically it's beautiful of course, and striking for Laura's voiceover which is v unusually in the second person, talking to her husband in her head.

the idea that she may not have been directly happy, more grateful but still unfulfilled is so sad to me. The idea that there was an opportunity to experience real feelings, maybe real passion and that she had to let it go in favour of half a life, forever. I've always found it horrific.
I don't disagree, except I don't find it horrific, just sad.
And Alec wasn't happy either, although again not exactly UN-happy or abused or whatever.

Interesting post. I'd say people in those days had lower expectations of marriage then than we do today, to be honest I think they were more realistic. I think Alex was less happy in his marriage than Laura, Laura was fine really - the brief encounter with Alex just stirred up her romanticism. Having said that, divorce did start to sky rocket relatively speaking after the rules changed slightly in 1937 and then especially after the war when women realised they could be independent if they wanted to having stepped up when the men were away fighting.

I enjoyed it when I was younger (I don't mind films being slow), but now I just feel sorry for the unsuspecting spouses at home. Probably because of reading the many stories of emotional affairs on here, actually.

I’m afraid I can’t take it seriously as I saw Victoria Wood’s skit of it in the 80’s before I saw the film 😬.

At the risk of sounding like a heathen I think its a really boring film. I can see how it garnered attention at the time, the characters being married and all but its incredibly dull, isn’t it?

I do think Celia Johnson is lovely in it and (as a hobby dressmaker) enjoyed the clothes, but the story? Nah.

I agree with all you’ve said, apart from the accents - I love the accents! It’s of a bygone era and good that it’s been captured on film. My sister in law does a marvellous impression of the accent and it always makes me smile.

I'm looking at it through the lens of what I understand about marriage for women back then. Some, a few, were lucky enough to genuinely love their husbands and their lives and feel fulfilled. However I've had it explained to me that a lot were not... They married because that's what they had to do. Many were just grateful if they weren't beaten or abused and most had very, very little control or autonomy in their own lives. They had to spend decades 'settling', not because they made poor choices but the alternative - independence, studying, careers, travel etc., the things we have enjoyed since - was not open to them. To be housed, fed and survive, basically, you largely had to be married. To not be was to be pitied and most undesirable. This didn't leave a lot of room for holding out for your true love. I hate the idea of living like that. We can't know how Laura truly felt about her husband and her life, about the circumstances of her life that led to her marriage, but the idea that she may not have been directly happy, more grateful but still unfulfilled is so sad to me. The idea that there was an opportunity to experience real feelings, maybe real passion and that she had to let it go in favour of half a life, forever. I've always found it horrific.

Yes, which makes it all the more moving. Today, people hug and cry and gush all over one another without a shred of real feeling or emotion. Everything is so vulgar and mawkish and fake and in your face. If you watch coverage of Remembrance Sunday from the 1970s and 1980s, when the WW1 veterans were still alive, it rips at your heart. No tears, no hugging, no awful sickly music, just rows of proud, dignified old men standing in rigid silence to remember fallen comrades. Now that is moving. It's moving because it's real.

My mum was born in 1923 and they were fairly middle class I suppose. They had a uniformed maid and a cook.

(And after the war she worked as a librarian in Boots!)

I've not seen the film in years, possibly not since I was a teenager. My late DM always described it as drab and depressing and wouldn't watch it, couldn't understand why I thought it was so good. And my late dad reckoned he saw them reshooting some scenes on the platform at iirc Beaconsfield Station (or maybe Gerrards Cross) because of the cost of travelling back up to Carnforth. It was apparently made on a v small budget.