Brief Encounter (1945)

United Kingdom

Drama, Romance

Cineguild, J. Arthur Rank Organisation

Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond, Everley Gregg

David Lean

Noël Coward

Taglines: A story of the most precious moments in a woman's life!

infidelity, farewell, husband wife relationship, narration, marriage, housewife, duty, doctor, love affair, tearjerker, told in flashback, impossible love, shame, guilty conscience, broken heart, hopelessness, scheduled rendezvous, secretiveness

Returning home from a shopping trip to a nearby town, bored suburban housewife Laura Jesson is thrown by happenstance into an acquaintance with virtuous doctor Alec Harvey. Their casual friendship soon develops during their weekly visits into something more emotionally fulfilling than either expected, and they must wrestle with the potential havoc their deepening relationship would have on their lives and the lives of those they love.

Reviews:

Author: Geronimo1967
Based on Noël Coward's play "Still Life" this is a super adaptation from David Lean as Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard meet in a railway station café and 90 minutes later we have been on a roller-coaster of emotions, all delicately and subtly discussed, as these two eminently middle class English people challenge their long established "civilised" values and conventions of behaviour. It's style is it's simplicity - the script is poignant and charming; if a little dated now. Stanley Holloway provides an occasional breath of air during this quite intense drama, and who can ever forget that Rachmaninoff is a huge star of this, too?