Two trains passing in the night

Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000) may be the 21st century’s finest cinematic love story defined not by consummation but by postponed passion, longing, and the emotional spaces between its characters. But in the 20th century, the film that laid claim to that feat of restrained romance was David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), which tells the quietly devastating story of two ordinary people—Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson), a middle-class housewife, and Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), a compassionate physician—who meet by chance in a railway station café and fall into an emotionally intense but ultimately unfulfilled love affair. Drawn together by loneliness and a sense of unmet longing, their brief weekly meetings become a refuge from their otherwise conventional lives, even as they struggle with guilt, societal expectations, and the inevitability of parting. Adapted from Noël Coward’s one-act play Still Life, the film is cherished as an all-timer 80 years later.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Brief Encounter, conducted last week, click here (if you get an error, simply try refreshing the page).

Arguably, the film’s two most important ingredients are its two master storytellers. This was the movie that put Lean on the map as one of the world’s foremost directors and is an early career example of one of his non-epics. And Brief Encounter became the most critically acclaimed film drawn from Coward’s plays, a movie many believe is the greatest among his four collaborations with Lean (previous partnerships included In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, and Blithe Spirit; that’s Coward’s voice bellowing out the railway station announcements we hear, by the way). Structurally, the story is masterfully crafted, beginning the narrative at the conclusion, then presenting the bulk of the story in flashback accompanied by voiceover, and then bookending matters by repeating Laura and Alec’s earlier farewell scene at the end, which emphasizes the poignancy and tragic nature of their doomed relationship.

Many call this the British Casablanca; indeed, both films feature a romantic pair who love each other but, due to a marital commitment, do not end up together. Brief Encounter still matters because it shows how, with good writing and deft direction, one can depict a cinematic love affair without obligatory sex. This was solidly in the era of strong censorship; therefore, the filmmakers had to be creative in how they presented this relationship to viewers.

It remains beloved because of its timeless romantic qualities, including its dramatic monochrome palette, the prewar setting that prevents it from being firmly anchored in a particular period, the evocative railway station imagery, and its fidelity to the main relationship story without getting sidetracked by subplots or superfluous secondary characters (aside from the delightful parallel romance vignettes between Godby the stationmaster and Myrtle the café owner, who provide needed comic relief and class contrast to the emotional heaviness of Alec and Laura’s story).

While often dreamy in mood, expressionistic lighting, and inner monologue, the film is imbued with the weight of realism, thanks to several factors: First, the decision to shoot in a handful of identifiable British locations, including the Carnforth railway station in Lancashire, the Middle Fell Bridge in Cumbria, and real suburban streets around Buckinghamshire. Also, it feels plausible and honest because it depicts ordinary people in a modest, everyday setting caught up in extraordinary emotion who face incredible internal, societal, and familial pressures to refrain from giving in to their passions. Little touches also make it feel more believable, such as neighbor Dolly annoyingly intruding on the lovers’ last moments together and making frivolous conversation. And it helps that the tale is orchestrated by a timeless classical piece – Rachmaninoff’s hauntingly beautiful and brooding Piano Concerto No. 2 – which serves as both a diegetic and non-diegetic score.

Produced modestly and without big-name actors, perhaps it demonstrated to filmmakers that even an unlikely, low-profile project could break through and succeed, encouraging them to experiment in new directions. This was also one of a few post-World War II cinematic success stories for Britain, among them Henry V, Blithe Spirit, and The Seventh Veil – all of which helped British pictures gain financial viability in American markets and capture Oscar recognition.

Films with stories and themes that echo Brief Encounter include Roman Holiday (1953), the 1974 television remake starring Richard Burton and Sophia Loren, Before Sunrise (1995), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Lost in Translation (2003), In the City of Sylvia (2007), and Carol (2015). And this is the film that helped inspire Billy Wilder to make The Apartment, particularly based on the scene in the flat where Alec’s friend Steven returns unexpectedly; Wilder thought about how that friend character and that scenario could make for an interesting film in itself.

Some scholars theorize that Alec and Laura refrain from sleeping together because of their shared middle-class identity, a group that saw itself as the guardian of respectable behavior – neither coarse like the working class nor indulgent like the upper class. Coward wrote chiefly with this audience in mind. Yet Laura’s narration makes clear that class anxiety isn’t what stops her; it’s the thought of causing her husband pain and violating her own ethical code. Caught between longing and loyalty, she ultimately aligns herself with these dutiful principles. For someone like Laura, the thought of adultery or divorce would have been profoundly unpalatable and socially stigmatizing.

Many feminist readings claim that Brief Encounter seeks to reinforce traditional relationships and reassert prewar social stability. Consider when this film was released, in late 1945, when many soldiers and veterans would have been returning home to the females they expected to be faithful and waiting. But married and partnered women were also navigating new freedoms – both sexual and economic – which adds another layer of resonance to Laura’s emotional struggle. Put another way, the fling was likely a thing at this time.

While you could make a case that the filmmakers treat the story objectively, allowing us to form our own moral opinions about Laura and Alec’s affair, the counterpoint is the scene involving Alec’s friend Steven, who spots Laura’s discarded scarf and clearly shames Alec. Interestingly, this is one of Laura’s flashbacks, yet she was not present in that scene, nor does Alec later tell Laura of the conversation between the two men. Critic Norman Holland’s interpretation of why Lean and Coward include the Steven scene in Laura’s memory is that they are “deliberately encouraging us to think about what is inside Laura’s mind and what is outside and the movie’s objective world… So cutting is (Steven’s) condemnation that it reaches past the literal boundaries of what Laura can and cannot know. This is objectively wrong. I think Lean is asking us to think about what is inside and outside our minds. How do we feel about this affair?”

This begs the question: Is Laura a reliable narrator? Can we trust that her flashbacks are accurate? One could contend that the answer is no, since her voiceover and memories are deeply colored by her feelings, sense of guilt, and the social expectations she internalizes, all of which influence how she remembers and makes sense of the past. Laura’s adherence to responsibility also appears to be what keeps her from taking her own life. She admits – while mentally addressing Fred: “I should like to be able to say it was the thought of you and the children that prevented me, but it wasn’t.” Her discontent seems tied to the moral expectations that accompany her social position. For proof, recall how she grins – perhaps enviously – when she witnesses the stationmaster playfully slap Myrtle on the behind.

Slant Magazine critic Clayton Dillard believed that Brief Encounter transforms Laura’s anxieties “into those of the United Kingdom as a whole. The film, set in 1938, unfolds at a moment before the catastrophe of World War II, so that Laura’s fear of her previously secure, rational process correlates with the failings of nationalism on a global scale. That is, Laura’s deteriorating sanity isn’t merely about her splintering sense of middle-class protection, but an entirely depleted notion of cultural normalcy following Nazism’s abject use of logical procedure to carry out genocide.”

Obviously, society has changed dramatically – not only in the United Kingdom but here in the United States. Today, having an affair that involves sex and which may end in divorce is not considered as serious a moral quandary or irredeemable act. Women feel much freer to explore their secret desires and are less bound to sociocultural conventions and expectations. The fact that the couple barely kiss and never engage in sexual intimacy can seem antiquated to modern audiences. Also, the heavily emotional piano music can play today as over the top, melodramatic, repetitive, and overtly manipulative.

On the other hand, the tension and frustration felt by Laura – whose perspective the story is told from – still feels palpable if you put the tale in context. Again, consider that this character is a married middle-class mother whose husband is sweet and trusting, and it’s easier to see how conflicted she would be about cheating while also how frustrated she would be with her decision to not physically consummate the affair.

Many find the closing words, uttered by husband Fred, as the most moving lines in the entire picture: “Whatever your dream was, it wasn’t a very happy one, was it? Is there anything I can do to help? You’ve been a long way away. Thank you for coming back to me.” That begs the question: Does Fred know the truth about her affair, or has he suspected for a long time without tipping his hand, or is it possible that he never knew and will never know? For that matter, how do we feel about Laura by the conclusion – did she make the right decision? Will her feelings for Alec prevent her from being truly happy henceforth?

The central concept underpinning the entire picture is the weight of moral obligation and duty. Laura feels guilty for sneaking around, lying to her husband, neglecting her role as a devoted mother, and potentially violating her marital vows. She suppresses her inner romantic needs and wants, attempting to adhere to societal expectations as well as self-imposed ethical imperatives. Her culpability and shame are externalized in several witness characters she encounters throughout her affair with Alec, including a priest, a police officer, an usher, a boatman, and female friends like Dolly and Mary.

Living vicariously through Laura, the viewer also experiences the excitement and drawbacks of temptation. Brief Encounter is a morality play set in a class-focused society where improprieties are frowned upon and women have very few options once they’ve committed to marriage. It depicts how secret liaisons can stir the soul, tickle the imagination, and make you feel alive, propelling you forward like the force of a full-speed train. Yet at the same time, the deceitfulness, unconsummated desire, and the frustrations that follow make you want to die, as Laura says – to jump in front of the speeding locomotive. The operative word that best describes the state of this affair is “misery,” a word or form of it that is uttered by the characters several times in the film. DVD Savant critic Glenn Erickson wrote: “Brief Encounter is really about romance frustrated… Lean takes pains to portray incipient adultery as misery for the unhappy people that consider it. Soap operas about wandering spouses typically take place in glamorous settings, and the people involved get a chance to enjoy ‘the thrill of romance’ before the inevitable problems settle in. Laura imagines such things only as a pipe dream. She and Alec feel guilty and ashamed every step of the way…Brief Encounter captures the dreadful weight of petty, seemingly insignificant moments that can suddenly be weighted with awful importance and remembered for a lifetime.”

The scene in which Laura’s children argue about going to the circus versus the pantomime is particularly revealing as a thematic representation of her internal conundrum. Fred suggests taking the kids to both on alternate days, to which Laura replies, “They’d be tired and fractious.” These words also fittingly describe her mental state after alternating between two men. Perhaps the movie’s funniest moment, one that comically reminds us of the repercussions of unbridled desire, is when the lovers are watching the trailer for Flames of Passion, a fake film that unashamedly apes King Kong. Immediately after the trailer concludes, Alec and Laura view an on-screen ad that reads: “Buy your (we see an illustration of a baby carriage) at Burtons.”

Time and again, we are reminded that this is a forbidden and doomed love. Some see this story as an allegory for closeted gay relationships in bygone times, not just clandestine heterosexual dalliances, that society would not have condoned. And like, in the opening sequence, the two foreshadowing trains we observe rushing past in opposite directions, Alec and Laura are fated to lead separate futures.

Running contrary to that theme is the notion of the random and happenstance nature of life. Perhaps they are star-crossed lovers who were destined to meet and ultimately part, but a more rational viewer would conclude that an unpredictable series of accidental circumstances causes Laura and Alec to initially meet and then keep running into each other.

Throughout the film, the lovers are constantly battling the clock and trying to meet train schedules and keep appointments, which reinforces the truism that time waits for no one. They never seem to have enough clicks on the pocket watch to fully enjoy each other. Memorable quotes from the characters echo this theme of life’s fleeting temporal nature: “There’s still time if we control ourselves and behave like sensible human beings,” Laura says, to which Alec replies, “There is no time at all.” Laura tells herself: “Nothing lasts really. Neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There'll come a time in the future when I shan't mind about this anymore, when I can look back and say quite peacefully and cheerfully how silly I was. No, no, I don't want that time to come ever.”

Brief Encounter also reminds us of the escapist magic inherent in movies and the transformative power of motion pictures – how, as when Laura looks at a reflection of herself projected onto the train window and is instantly transported to a series of flashbacks and fantasies, we can divert our minds from everyday troubles and mundane matters and look to the on-screen characters as wish fulfillment avatars.

Brief Encounter’s most bountiful bestowal to audiences 80 years later is its romantic simplicity. This film boils down temptation and attraction to its simplest essentials, refreshingly without the need to depict torrid sexuality, introduce extraneous characters or subplots, or deviate from one character’s point of view. It’s pure, clean, and lean cinematic storytelling. It’s crucial that the narrative is told from a woman’s POV – a female who has a lot to lose and with whom any man can feel empathy for if they look closely enough. Yes, this was considered a “woman’s picture” back in 1945, and could be labeled by the myopic as a “chick flick” nowadays. But the story, characters, and situations are relatively timeless and universal, transcending gender boundaries.

Make no mistake: Brief Encounter has been celebrated as one of the greatest films of all time. At the 19th Academy Awards, Brief Encounter earned three nominations for Best Director (David Lean), Best Actress (Celia Johnson), and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked it the second greatest British film ever, behind only The Third Man. Total Film magazine placed it 44th on its 2004 ranking of the best British movies. In 2017, a Time Out poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers, and critics named it the 12th-best British film ever. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 91% “fresh” rating, with an average critical score of 8.6 out of 10, while its Metascore at Metacritic stands at 92 out of 100.