classicsoncall Review of Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter (1945)

"Can you really say goodbye and never see me again?"

[7/10 · 23 March 2018]

What's striking about this film from a present day perspective is how platonic the relationship between Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) actually was. Made today, the movie would have required the prerequisite hop into bed after the first kiss, but in the 1940's, that would have gotten you into trouble with the Production Code. What I liked about the story was that it featured two ordinary people who weren't glamorous, rich or having any other defining characteristic that might have placed them a notch above average. For moviegoers of the era, that template would have appealed to most at time when people weren't so self absorbed with celebrity and fame. Today, the picture would be a drag as an original release, although for cinema fans there's much here to admire. Director David Lean tells his story with compassion and grace, and though the extramarital affair appears doomed from the start, the fated couple enjoys their moments of fleeting happiness together. What I could have stood less of was the intrusive narration by Celia Johnson's character; my own feeling is that an effective story doesn't need to be translated by one of the characters. And if I didn't know the director of the film was David Lean, I would have guessed Hitchcock, who constantly employed chance meetings, conflicted characters and British ambience, with the railway station setting a natural.