Brief Encounter- the film

[Orangesandlemons77]

We watched this film on TV last night. DH confided in me he used to watch it years ago, over and over and had been in tears over it.

To be honest I didn't really like it. A bit boring. All about an emotional affair between two random people in the 1940s who meet in a train station and go to the pictures etc despite having husbands / wives and children at home.

It just went on and on and then finishes with them saying goodbye and her crying in the arms of her husband who she has been lying to throughout.

AIBU?

It has a real personal resonance for me, saying goodbye at a train station to someone I couldn't be with, and I blub like a baby if I watch that scene 😭

It’s very much of its time. The accents, black and white etc. Did you really pay attention? Not rudely but if you weren’t too distracted by how different life was then it’s a very simple, but very affecting story.

Love this film, gets me everytime. Love v duty.

Oh I love Brief Encounter! I’m with your DH.

Oh I've watched this film so many many times over the years. I've actually got it on DVD!
We used to watch it as a family because we loved the old station and trains, absolutely wonderful Rachmaninov music and the very familiar actors and actresses..
BUT we always had a good laugh at it and found the story line quite hilarious.

It gets me every time. The filming is beautiful, the clipped English accents etc can be a little distracting at first. But it's such a perfect picture of how difficult life can be.

Try Casablanca - that's a great film!

LOVE it! It’s a classic for a reason… but yes, of its time, those accents for starters…

I get it was doing something new and as such should be viewed as a classic. Anyone who said it was one of their favourite films though I'd look at with huge suspicion.

It's an emotional affair, and paints this as something glorious. Love vs duty? My foot. Aren't I great because I went back to my wife without getting my dick wet. Aren't I brilliant because I went back to my husband and kept my legs shut.

It’s of its time. When people, well some of them anyway, put duty above personal desires.

I'm torn about Brief Encounter. I believe we're all supposed to be impressed by the main characters doing the 'right thing' in the end rather than destroying families etc. On the other hand my own experience makes me feel that parents who stay together for that reason when it's not necessarily what they really want are not happy and that transfers to family life. Obviously divorce wasn't socially acceptable then, breaking up the family would have been completely scandalous. But I think there was a risk of maybe eight people ending up unhappy (two families, can't remember the details of how many children in each) in the long term. I realise it's a niche, personal view but I don't quite approve of that level of self-sacrifice and martyrdom because I believe it comes with consequences.

I absolutely ADORE it and gave watched it so many times

I particularly like the ending when you can see that Fred has seen her distress and has figured out pretty much what's happened, but his only concern is for HER and if there's anything he can do to help (sob)......

I assume its set just before WW2 - how navy "ordinary middle aged housewives" had maids - and in a uniform with cap to boot!?

I'm knocking 70 and certainly didn't hear of any of my schoolmates having maids - although the Boots being a lending library does seem familiar to me.

I love Brief Encounter!

I also love the Victoria Wood spoof of it- maybe you’ll like this better, OP?

For those that love Brief Encounter, watch Falling in Love with Streep and De Niro.

I love Brief Encounter and seem to find new angles every time I watch it.
@BMW6 my grandparents had a cook, housemaid and laundrymaid, although none were live in.

Not a fan of the film but it was filmed at Carnforth station. As a child I used to stay with my grandmother during the summer. She would take us for days out and Carnforth was the station we always had to change at. I remember having tea in the cafe. It would have been in the late 60s/early 70s and still looked like it did during the film.
So when I watch the film it takes me back to my childhood.

You are being VU. It is a great film. That theme of love which cannot be and the background of social class in the 1930s makes for a classic. Add into that the comic interludes and the music and you have my all time favourite film.

I love it, the part where Laura’s monologue in her head about “one day none of this will matter” really gets me through bad times and her lovely husband acknowledging her absence but just embracing her return is beautiful.

For god's sake why are people so utterly binary nowadays, so utterly certain of their moral rightness? EMOTIONAL AFFAIR - BAD PEOPLE!

It's a great bit of cinema. Why can't it just be taken as that? It's not coming out on any "side"? It's just telling the tale of two people who fell in love, and decided on balance that they couldn't be together after wading through a moral quagmire. It presents that beautifully (despite the accents). Divorce and splitting up was perceived very differently among the middle classes in the 1940s. "Disgrace" was a very real thing. But surely we can relate to that feeling if your heart being torn out of your body and the utter grief it leaves you with?

(lucky you if you are or have been happily married and have never known this feeling either before, during or after your marriage)

What an emotionally stunted person you are.

I really love the restraint in it.
Its of its time, but also more reminiscent of real life.

It reminds me of the bit in love actually where the affair is discovered, where emma Thompson has a private little cry, straightens out the sheets and goes back to her family. Its far more emotional then the actual confrontation about it which remains restrained and dignified, but especially more so than the more soap opera style big arguments or declarations of love.

When i think of my two biggest moments of love and heart break it's mostly quiet. Most relationships start with gentle signs, that thrill of sitting a bit close, a glance too long etc rather than a big old kiss. It also means that some of the breakups I can remember weren't break ups at all but the lack of progression of a spark that never amounted into a relationship.

My two biggest break ups, ended with quiet sadness. One of us simply saying see you soon in a high street while knowing we would not, the other in a carpark as they left the car.

I identify that a lot more than the drama of crying fits, bare all emotional shouting, arguing or big declarations that seem to be common in tv and film but not real life.

YAB thoroughly unreasonable. Worth it for the music alone.

Amazing film. How many would make the same choices now?

I don't think it does paint it as something glorious. I feel a distinctly disapproving tone and I don't there was any question of any other ending.

I love it - the genius of Noel Coward in the mix of comedy and tragedy, the exasperated cafe worker who expostulates 'Them buns was fresh this morning'!

Filmed in 1945 and has that feel that emotions are just worn out.

If you explore his other wonderful wonderful plays like Private Lives (watched it recently on youtube), you might enjoy them more. Usually he is lighter - this is a rare sad gem. I find the little touches throughout it so enchanting. It is subtle and light. Yes of it's time- but that's OK!

The long winter nights must fly by in your house 😒