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Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945) Director: David Lean
Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway
Genre: Drama, Romance
about:A bored woman has a chance meeting with a stranger at a railway station and strikes up a romance with him. Both of them are married and know that their relationship can go nowhere.
Thoughts: This was a well made film and it covers a subject of infidelity in a way that hadn't been done before, so kudos for that. It's a short 86 minutes that looks at the makings of an illicit affair. The film starts off as a mystery and takes a long while until the subject matter about two married people falling in love with each other, became apparent. By the time I knew what the movie was about, I had grown restless with it. A film needs to hook people in the opening scenes.
The ending didn't work for me, so don't read this last part if you haven't seen the film:
The ending didn't work for me...Laura, who's married to a nice man, but has an affair with a married doctor. During the end scene Laura is setting in her living room, looking miserable as her loving and unsuspecting husband does a cross word puzzle...There's a long internal monologue as she thinks out loud, so we can hear it, about what she would tell her husband about her affair. She thinks outloud, 'the truth would hurt him', so she never does tell him about it. She then smiles and he walks over and hugs her, then he says something like, 'you were a long ways away for the last month, I'm glad to have you back.....' To me that seemed like a 'soft' way to end the film and I felt let down. I wanted more of the conflict coming into the light, with some sort of resolve or understanding coming out of that.
I have to say this is a uniquely done film, and worth watching.
Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945)
Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway
Genre: Drama, Romance
about:A bored woman has a chance meeting with a stranger at a railway station and strikes up a romance with him. Both of them are married and know that their relationship can go nowhere.
Thoughts: This was a well made film and it covers a subject of infidelity in a way that hadn't been done before, so kudos for that. It's a short 86 minutes that looks at the makings of an illicit affair. The film starts off as a mystery and takes a long while until the subject matter about two married people falling in love with each other, became apparent. By the time I knew what the movie was about, I had grown restless with it. A film needs to hook people in the opening scenes.
The ending didn't work for me, so don't read this last part if you haven't seen the film:
The ending didn't work for me...Laura, who's married to a nice man, but has an affair with a married doctor. During the end scene Laura is setting in her living room, looking miserable as her loving and unsuspecting husband does a cross word puzzle...There's a long internal monologue as she thinks out loud, so we can hear it, about what she would tell her husband about her affair. She thinks outloud, 'the truth would hurt him', so she never does tell him about it. She then smiles and he walks over and hugs her, then he says something like, 'you were a long ways away for the last month, I'm glad to have you back.....' To me that seemed like a 'soft' way to end the film and I felt let down. I wanted more of the conflict coming into the light, with some sort of resolve or understanding coming out of that.
I have to say this is a uniquely done film, and worth watching.