The legendary film critic Pauline Kael didn’t seem to care much for this film. Acknowledging it as a “celebrated tearjerker”, she also called it so “neat” that there didn’t seem to be “a breath of air in it”. Still, Brief Encounter has become perhaps the most admired of the silver screen’s many romances, a film both meticulously analyzed by historians and plainly loved by audiences for the emotions it stirs.

Meeting a friendly doctor
Suburban housewife Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) takes the train into the city once a week to go shopping, meet a friend and catch the odd matinee. On one of these occasions, she runs into a friendly doctor, Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), and they start talking. He also takes the train once a week to a local hospital where he works a few hours as a consultant. Both Alec and Laura are married with children and don’t seem to have thought much about straying. But they do get together a few more times and it doesn’t take long for them to fall in love.

Laura in particular suffers from a guilty conscience and desperately wants to talk to her husband Fred (Cyril Raymond) about what’s going on, but she knows that she can’t. Instead the encounters continue; there’s matinees, coffee, strolls in the park. Eventually, their relationship reaches a point where they must make a decision.

Dialogue always rings true
It may sound incredibly simple, and that’s true of the basic story. This was nothing new to 1940s audiences, and modern readers will recognize where Robert James Waller got his inspiration for “The Bridges of Madison County”. But the success of the film depends on what Noël Coward, David Lean and their fellow collaborators did with their little forbidden romance. Coward’s dialogue always rings true (at least in the context of WWII British middle-class life) and Laura’s inner monologues (where she describes her heartbreak to her unwitting husband) will resonate with all ages; if you’re married, there’s no way you can’t relate to thoughts about what might have been if you had strayed?

For me, the most gripping moment of the film doesn’t come when our couple must to decide on their future, but in the final scene where Laura and Fred share a tender and very revealing embrace. The film begins with a shot of a train arriving at the station; the white smoke fills the screen in a haunting, very beautiful way. Much of the action takes place at the station, with trains and passengers coming and going as a symbol of the brief love affair. The central romance is contrasted with a more humorous one, where the station attendant keeps hitting on the owner of the tea room who is not easily impressed.

The characters may be restrained and politely British, but that music reveals their true passions.

Adding to the atmosphere, apart from the dramatic black-and-white cinematography, is the music, almost all of it Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto nr. 2”. The characters may be restrained and politely British, but that music reveals their true passions. Kael and other critics may look down on the ridiculously civil behavior in this film, but it is mirroring a classic image of what middle-class life looked like at this time – and also what was boiling beneath the surface.

Johnson didn’t make a lot of movies, but this is her most memorable performance on screen; she doesn’t have to say anything really, you can read everything on her face. She’s supported by an immaculate cast. The running time may be only 85 minutes, but the legacy will last longer than 85 years.

Brief Encounter 1945-U.K. 85 min. B/W. Directed by David Lean. Screenplay: David Lean, Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan. Play: Noël Coward (“Still Life”). Cinematography: Robert Krasker. Cast: Celia Johnson (Laura Jesson), Trevor Howard (Alec Harvey), Stanley Holloway (Albert Godby), Cyril Raymond, Joyce Carey, Everley Gregg. 

Trivia: Co-produced by Neame and Coward. Roger Livesey was considered for the part of Alec Harvey. Remade as a TV movie, Brief Encounter (1974). Later an opera.

Cannes: Grand Prix.

Last word: “Riskiest thing I ever did. […] There were no big stars. The main love story had an unhappy ending. The film was played in unglamorous surroundings. And the three leading characters were approaching middle age. A few years ago, that would have been a recipe for box-office disaster.” (Lean, Criterion)