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?

That's a very strange sounding pie

Grrrr - one despairs of the “shocked at the past” crew.

Even if it’s - groan - in black and white and - grumble - they speak weird and -shriek - they don’t act like we do now - it’s a wonderful film, beautifully shot and with humour to offset the pathos. And the music….

I went on a pilgrimage to Carnforth Station last year - absolutely splendid cafe! (Dh arranged trip in secret: he obviously fears being Fred!!)

I too love This Happy Breed. Dm said it was just like her household. I saw a criticism saying it was “genteel slumming” - but I think that describes a lot of that part of society back then.

It's a masterpiece in understatement. Their unsatisfied passion, society's judgement (seen in his friend's reaction), her husband's brave gallantry ('thank you for coming back to me').
And that music, ahhhhhh.

"Oh Jerry, don't ask for the moon. We have stars."

A brilliant, emotional film (typical of my all time favourite actress, Bette Davis and what an incredible actress she was, even if she was prone to over acting 😉)

But yet, another film 'of its time'...an emotional affair that could never be truly fulfilled.

I love the sound of the The Enchanted Cottage...never heard of it but having googled, I shall keep my eye out for it. 😊

I think she was incredibly selfish and self-absorbed. How wonderful it must have been to be a wife and mother back then as it seemed she had an entire day to herself.

I'm guessing she would have given up work as was expected hence having time to herself whilst her son was in school.

When at others homes i cant tell them to turn it off.

I agree.Most people are not that lucky.

My friends are mostly unhappily married. They tolerate their husbands and none of them are having sex anymore, except for one of them. I don’t know any happy couples after about 20 years. They are living separate lives entirely and do the odd thing together. There is no love or passion there, it’s dead.

Glad to hear the cafe is still going and is good...funnily enough I was looking through some old photos this week and found a few I took on a trip there about 20 years ago (time flies!)

Glad to hear the cafe is still going and is good...funnily enough I was looking through some old photos this week and found a few I took on a trip there about 20 years ago (time flies!)

They were blessed weren't they. When 16 year old granny fell in love with a young man who was considered very unsuitable I don't suppose anyone would have put money on their elopement turning out how it did.

She's so bewildered by his anger and so unworldly that it doesn't occur to her why his "friend's" death is so devastating to her.

Poor Nella and poor Cliff.

Thenk you for coming beck to me…

Yes, I live in Carnforth, cafe was going to close about a year ago but was saved. I love the whole atmosphere in there though the station itself is abit rundown. In its heyday it was an important junction. The film is very moral and of its time, pleased to see so many still appreciate it!

I can't vote you are being unreasonable as whether or not you like a film is down to personal choice, however, I think this film is one of the classics and I have watched it numerous times.
I think for it to really resonate you have to have suffered heartache or a longing for something which just couldn't be.
Some of us experience that in our lifetimes and some don't, for those that have I think this film is extremely emotional as you can empathise with the heartache and the dilemma.
Please don't think I am thinking the OP's husband has had an affair as I am not but he might have known heartbreak.

just came on to see if there was a thread!!

I'm ancient, saw it years ago as a teen with my mum: 'what was THAT all about, they didn't even DO anything?'

just caught it last night on my way to netflix and thought I'd watch it for a bit, mainly to chortle at the accents

anyway, it vortexed me in, of course. I loved it. and I surprised myself by blubbing at the husband and the embrace at the end

perfect

tho trevor howard was punching

Great cooked breakfast and piping hot!

and @TheignT

I think the concept of romantic love is fine if you're a medieval lady stuck in a turret but it's not necessarily a sound basis for stable families... if one set of your grandparents achieved this - that's rather lovely, but most people will feel common or garden 'love' (affection) and I've also heard it said that 'love' is a verb. I can't speak for your other grandparents - maybe opposites attracted? From what I can tell from my genealogical research (largely big industrial towns, working and petit bourgeois class) - virtually everyone in the C19th and C20th married. I seriously doubt they were all flung into the heavens on a feeling of being 'in love' and having met their soul mate... many will have been generally happy and some not so happy but it's human nature to think the grass is always greener on the other side in all sorts of ways. Aside from romantic love, the nuclear family is a fairly modern concept in historical terms.

I read a pp say they thought Alec and Laura should've got together at the end of the film - absolutely disagree!! It would've been a completely different film! It was titled Brief Encounter after all.

The nearest I'd come to that is that the writer Noel Coward was gay, which of course was illegal then and would be for another 20 years at least, and that informed his writing; that he identified with the idea of a repressed relationship that couldn't be openly declared because of social norms.

That said, the director David Lean went off the movie because at a private preview an awful women was laughing all the way through. Also, the actor Trevor Howard found it exasperating, being less of a gentleman in real life, kept asking, 'Why doesn't he just shag her?' or words very close to that effect.

Yes - I’d forgotten that! You’re right.

Which makes it even more poignant and perceptive.

I have to admit this is another one of my issues with the film - I just don't like Trevor Howard. I can't imagine why Laura or any other woman would have gone there.

I think both Howard and Johnson are meant to be fairly ordinary suburban people - perfectly reasonable-looking but not glamorous or overtly sexy. And that immediate post-war period must have been very drab, depressing and lacking any luxury, especially in terms of clothes, hair and make-up.

Laura looked and dressed just like my mum’s best friend so I always thought of the couple as the antithesis of Hollywood glamour!

I love this film. The music🥰, the age, the characters.

"Thank you for coming back to me.". Gets me every time.

It's not that. I thought she was lovely. It's a particular dislike I have for him, not just in this film but in anything. I feel similar about James Stewart actually and everyone seems to love him.

it is a beautiful film
you are not allowed to criticise it
its a classic

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

I think the film speaks to that specific time and place where ambition, art, drive, etc…were all forbidden to women. They were just supposed to decorate a domestic scene. so the meeting of two unrelated adults to talk about ideas in itself seemed shocking and transgressive.

A related (and sappy but very watchable) version of this in a later American aesthetic is The Bridges of Madison County which reveals to the adult children of the heroine that their sedate foreign farming mother had had a secret passionate affair one brief summer.