Brief EncounterIs domesticity the terminus of romance? Brief Encounter is a romantic movie about an English housewife named Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) who comes to fall in love with a man named Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), who falls in love with her as well. What begins from a series of innocuous encounters blossoms into a swell of emotion and hidden desire. But as evidenced in the opening to Brief Encounter, their forbidden love cannot be sustained, and through heartbreak and wistful recollections about those happy Thursdays, Laura recalls how her outlook on life has changed...but has this experience brought her wisdom or just sorrow?
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Adapted for the screen by David Lean from the play "Still Life" by Noël Coward, Brief Encounter has become one of the most beloved classical movie romances in history, and with good reason. It is a compelling drama that means different things to different people by way of how one approaches the subject matter on a personal level. It is also a film that relies on its audience's preconceived biases about extramarital affairs, domestic ennui, and feelings of being taken for granted...and that's just to start. Certainly Laura's life at home with her husband, Fred (Cyril Raymond), is nothing horrible, but it has grown stale. It would seem that "romance" is just a seven letter word in his evening crossword puzzle. Life has grown into routine for Laura; every Thursday, she takes the train into town to do the weekly shopping and treats herself to a movie, despite many of them being terribly dull. She takes tea at the refreshment cafe that separates the train tracks at the station before returning home, where she and Fred sit around the fire--him with his crossword, her with her sewing. Here is where audiences will either view this scene as domestic harmony or lifeless stasis. Is Laura happy? Well, considering the narrative structure of Brief Encounter, most audiences will conclude that she is not, and that she longs for some deep-seated release or adventure. Laura's affair--the extent of which is ambiguous, either by necessity for the times in which Brief Encounter was made or other design--changes her. Her final farewell to Alec is interrupted by a nattering gossip named Dolly Messiter (Everley Gregg), whose presence grates on Laura's nerves terribly in this delicate moment. But despite this, Dolly is actually a very compassionate woman who looks after Laura when she becomes overwrought, blaming her sorrow on mere lightheadedness. This directly speaks to Laura's own transformation through her narration. Certainly nothing that Laura thinks or does during her flashback into her brief affair isn't communicated aptly by Johnson's performance as subtext, but the narration emphasizes just how like Dolly she once was. Prior to that meeting Alec, she narrates as though she were just nattering on about the minutiae of everyday life herself. Her thoughts are shallow despite her being a very intelligent woman. (For example, she often helps Fred complete the more complex questions in his crossword, recalling lines from a poem by Keats.) But life for Laura has lost its flavor. She comes home and has to deal with the children's problems, ranging from squabbles over how to spend a birthday to a minor concussion inflicted during a traffic accident...all things any mother knows all too well about. For Laura, these responsibilities have made her into a different person and somewhere deep inside, she misses that zeal that brought her to fall in love with her husband in the first place, who has an annoying habit of diffusing any potential argument with a pat "have it your own way" response. So despite Alec's charm and enthusiasm, it seems to me that Laura's adventure has less to do with him than it does with rediscovering herself, somewhat similar to Kate Chopin's novella, "The Awakening". And the excitement of meeting a stranger to whom you are attracted and even doing something that you really aren't supposed to do--like entering into a relationship with said stranger--has been the basis for countless romantic movies, not least of which includes Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise.
The question about how much responsibility does either Laura or Alec bear in their brief dalliance with infidelity is debatable. Superficially, Alec seems predisposed to enticing Laura with his politeness, tenderness, and even a seductiveness that calls to her. Aside from his gentlemanly tending to that fateful bit of grit that got lodged in her eye one day, they have no other interaction until the next Thursday when they just so happen to cross paths in town. It is Laura who notices him looking for a spot to sit to have lunch at the busy cafe, where after she offers him a chair, they joke about the quality of live music and debate about him treating her to lunch or splitting the check. All of these moments have the earmarks of a date, but they are just as plausible as any interaction could be with a friendly stranger as well. Despite this, the audience is forearmed with the knowledge that their innocent lunch and subsequent trip to the movies portends much more to come. But even without this preamble, there is the spark of something more always present...everywhere from the dialogue to the deft performances by Johnson and Howard. Ironically, both of their performances are somewhat familiar, as though you might picture another actor or actress in their stead...like, say, Joan Fontaine as Laura or George Sanders as Alec. But this is actually an advantage in Brief Encounter, because it emphasizes just how alike these two star-crossed lovers are with nearly anyone else. In this way, Brief Encounter posits that anyone--given the right set of circumstances--might be challenged to engage in an extramarital affair, and that it doesn't just have to be one particular type of person. Of course this brings into question just how harshly we should judge those who do slip in a committed relationship...like they say about glass houses, and so on. It is often said that those who cheat on their significant others do so because they find something lacking, and this feels true for Laura at least. But this also comes across in Alec, who becomes animated when he describes his enthusiasm for the practice of preventative medicine. As Laura observes, he becomes so awakened with talking about his vocation that she seems to her like "a little boy". Vivacity has returned to him, and although she doesn't understand much of his "talking shop", he feels acknowledged and appreciated for the opportunity to share something of himself with someone else. Even though we never meet Alec's wife, Madeline, one expects that she has essentially forbade him from boring her with the details of his job. His torment at being forced to choose between Laura or a job in South Africa that would speak to his doctoral needs must weigh heavily on him indeed. So both Laura and Alec discover someone who makes them feel alive again, but how long would this last if it were to continue? How long would it be before Laura also became irritated with not being able to follow along with Alec's nigh-mania at preventative care, or before Alec would long for relaxing, uncomplicated nights at home to decompress over a crossword, leaving Laura to feel isolated yet again? Laura fantasizes about visiting exotic locales with Alec, but would it happen? Even if she could overcome the shame at betraying her husband and the lies she tells all too easily, would her reality match her dreams? Probably not. This makes the last line of Brief Encounter so poignant when Fred tells her that although she had gone away, recollecting her affair and narrating as though she were speaking to Fred about it, she did not appear to be happy, but that he is glad that she came back to him as they embrace. In a sense, this affair was like some long-running sickness that needed to be exorcised from Laura and Alec...something that had never been fully resolved until now. And yes, this is but one interpretation of Brief Encounter--my own--yet this is a testament to the strength of this movie that it can allow for all of the myriad points of view that each of us has about what Laura's Thursdays of bliss meant for her as much as they mean to you.
Recommended for: Fans of a complex romance and character study about that absence of amorous satisfaction that life inevitably forces all of us to confront, no matter how comfortable or loved we might actually be. Brief Encounter is a film that deals with very real adult themes of fidelity and love, and subsequently is best enjoyed by audiences who have had to manage these feelings for themselves to some degree.
The question about how much responsibility does either Laura or Alec bear in their brief dalliance with infidelity is debatable. Superficially, Alec seems predisposed to enticing Laura with his politeness, tenderness, and even a seductiveness that calls to her. Aside from his gentlemanly tending to that fateful bit of grit that got lodged in her eye one day, they have no other interaction until the next Thursday when they just so happen to cross paths in town. It is Laura who notices him looking for a spot to sit to have lunch at the busy cafe, where after she offers him a chair, they joke about the quality of live music and debate about him treating her to lunch or splitting the check. All of these moments have the earmarks of a date, but they are just as plausible as any interaction could be with a friendly stranger as well. Despite this, the audience is forearmed with the knowledge that their innocent lunch and subsequent trip to the movies portends much more to come. But even without this preamble, there is the spark of something more always present...everywhere from the dialogue to the deft performances by Johnson and Howard. Ironically, both of their performances are somewhat familiar, as though you might picture another actor or actress in their stead...like, say, Joan Fontaine as Laura or George Sanders as Alec. But this is actually an advantage in Brief Encounter, because it emphasizes just how alike these two star-crossed lovers are with nearly anyone else. In this way, Brief Encounter posits that anyone--given the right set of circumstances--might be challenged to engage in an extramarital affair, and that it doesn't just have to be one particular type of person. Of course this brings into question just how harshly we should judge those who do slip in a committed relationship...like they say about glass houses, and so on. It is often said that those who cheat on their significant others do so because they find something lacking, and this feels true for Laura at least. But this also comes across in Alec, who becomes animated when he describes his enthusiasm for the practice of preventative medicine. As Laura observes, he becomes so awakened with talking about his vocation that she seems to her like "a little boy". Vivacity has returned to him, and although she doesn't understand much of his "talking shop", he feels acknowledged and appreciated for the opportunity to share something of himself with someone else. Even though we never meet Alec's wife, Madeline, one expects that she has essentially forbade him from boring her with the details of his job. His torment at being forced to choose between Laura or a job in South Africa that would speak to his doctoral needs must weigh heavily on him indeed. So both Laura and Alec discover someone who makes them feel alive again, but how long would this last if it were to continue? How long would it be before Laura also became irritated with not being able to follow along with Alec's nigh-mania at preventative care, or before Alec would long for relaxing, uncomplicated nights at home to decompress over a crossword, leaving Laura to feel isolated yet again? Laura fantasizes about visiting exotic locales with Alec, but would it happen? Even if she could overcome the shame at betraying her husband and the lies she tells all too easily, would her reality match her dreams? Probably not. This makes the last line of Brief Encounter so poignant when Fred tells her that although she had gone away, recollecting her affair and narrating as though she were speaking to Fred about it, she did not appear to be happy, but that he is glad that she came back to him as they embrace. In a sense, this affair was like some long-running sickness that needed to be exorcised from Laura and Alec...something that had never been fully resolved until now. And yes, this is but one interpretation of Brief Encounter--my own--yet this is a testament to the strength of this movie that it can allow for all of the myriad points of view that each of us has about what Laura's Thursdays of bliss meant for her as much as they mean to you.
Recommended for: Fans of a complex romance and character study about that absence of amorous satisfaction that life inevitably forces all of us to confront, no matter how comfortable or loved we might actually be. Brief Encounter is a film that deals with very real adult themes of fidelity and love, and subsequently is best enjoyed by audiences who have had to manage these feelings for themselves to some degree.