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?

But the husband never knows of the ‘affair’. He’s not affected by it - Laura is. She loves him (in a different way to Trevor H, of course) and doesn’t want to hurt him.

In the moral climate of the 40s the family and children were regarded as of paramount importance - much more so than personal sexual fulfilment.

You might have felt differently in 1936.

Even now, when we have one of our sadly very very common infidelity threads, there are often people (not everyone, but a significant number) who say words to the effect of "Where's his sense of duty to his family, his vows and his commitment? Does he think we don't also fantasise about amazing fake lives?"

Disclaimer – it's a while since I watched it, so memory may not be 100%:

They're both a little unhappy/unfulfilled, aren't they, rather than deeply unhappy or being abused or anything in their marriages?
That's what I find affecting and heartbreaking about it – they're OK, they just could feel better. It's about 'settling', I suppose, and no, that's not a very modern approach. There's great pathos in it though.
And the music! <<swoons>> It put me on to Rachmaninov, who I've loved ever since.

At around the time BE was made my grandparents split up after 20 something years of misery. Well maybe there were some happy times at the start. One thing my mother and her siblings were united on was they should have split up years earlier and spared their children the misery they experienced.

How they ever married is a mystery, she was full of life, she'd dance round the kitchen, loved the cinema and never judged people. He was severe, I honestly don't ever remember him smiling.let alone having fun.

Staying together isn't always the noble choice.

I feel so sad thinking of the years when granny would be controlled by him but at least she had some years of freedom although she was poor and life wasn't easy.

How much better would it have been for both of them to find their perfect match.

That is very sad. I mean, you may well be right, but I like to think that my husband and I choose to be with each other each day. And if we ever get to the point where we don't choose that, we will go our separate ways.

There’s kind of a counterpoint to it in a scene in Victoria Wood’s Housewife 49. She meets her doctor played by Jason Watkins on the train. He’s a bit drunk but he confesses that he’s met someone else and has no intention of doing the right thing as life is too short and the war has made him realise this.

I'm sure I would have felt differently back then. I was just replying to the poster who was saying we could all do with more duty and less personal desire in our relationships.

In 2025. You really can’t take this film out of its historical and cultural context.

I would say that Fred does know something has been going on with Laura, even if he doesn't know exactly what.

In fact that's the most tear jerking part.....something like...

"You've been a long way away haven't you? Thank you for coming back to me."

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.

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!)

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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 only watched that once but it was fantastic

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.