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Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond ... see more see more... , Valentine Dyall , Everley Gregg , Margaret Barton , Marjorie Mars , Dennis Harkin , Wallace Bosco , Sydney Bromley , Irene Handl , Jack May , Avis Scott , Wilfred Babbage , Richard Thomas , Nuna Davey , Edward Hodge

Based on Noël Coward's play "Still Life," Brief Encounter is a romantic, bittersweet drama about two married people who meet by chance in a London railway station and carry on an intense love affair. ... read more read more...Sentimental yet down-to-earth and set in pre-World War II England, the film follows British housewife Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson), who is on her way home, but catches a cinder in her eye. By chance, she meets Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), who removes it for her. The two talk for a few minutes and strike immediate sparks, but they end up catching different trains. However, both return to the station once a week to meet and, as the film progresses, they grow closer, sharing stories, hopes, and fears about their lives, marriages, and children. One day, when Alec's train is late, both become frantic that they will miss each other. When they finally find each other, they realize that they are in love. But what should be a joyous realization is fraught with tragedy, since both care greatly for their families. Howard and Johnson give flawless performances as two practical, married people who find themselves in a situation in which they know they can never be happy. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

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90% liked it

10,439 ratings

Critics

88% liked it

32 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 26 min.

Directed by: David Lean

Release Date: November 26, 1945

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DVD Release Date: September 7, 2004

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Stats: 1,138 reviews

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Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard Celia Johnson "I meant to do it..." This misery can't last
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Flixster Reviews (1,138)

  • edfilmreviews
    October 19, 2012
    edfilmreviews
    Boring. I just didn't care for the relationship or the characters. There's also no story, just multiple scenes of the romance developing (I guess you can call that the story, an uninteresting one at that. Only for romance fans). The movie's running time is less than 90 minutes, b... read moreut trust me, it feels as if it's over two hours. It never goes anywhere interesting thus making it a dull film.
  • UniversalDreamer
    August 16, 2012
    UniversalDreamer
    Two strangers meet in a train station waiting area, both happily married yet magnetically drawn to each other in spite of that. David Lean's adult question, set to Sergei Rachmaninoff's yearning 2nd Concerto, simply wonders what we may want once we have everything we want and ha... read mores endured for its grown up (if dramatic) consideration of the same.
  • FrizzDrop
    January 12, 2012
    FrizzDrop
    This is one of the most gorgeous films of the forties, adapted from the play by the prolific Noel Coward; Brief Encounter is one of the more taboo films from that era. Other films that came after it were far more fastidious in their rendering of the sexual aspect to these clumsy ... read moreaffairs, but this film is far more psychological, directing much of the film's emphasis on the emotional toll of lying to yourself and your loved ones. This simple tale is a familiar one to us all: two married people meet and fall in love unexpectedly. The film covers the trials and rollercoaster of denial, adoration, and admonishment that comes with having an affair and not knowing it. The two leads (Broadway legends Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard) act as if they were still on the stage, their facial expressions, the way they hold one another, the way they carry themselves in these desperate times, really spoke volumes about the way the characters interacted with each other. None of the other minimal characters attributed to this film truly matter, not even their significant others. The reason this film works while retaining the same concept we've seen time and again is that there is a level of devotion and attraction not seen in other films. These two don't want to be unfaithful to their spouses. They were perfectly happy with their small lives, eating in the same tea rooms, watching films in crowded theaters, and going home on their respective evening trains, but just a flicker of hope rose between them over time. Laura (Johnson) right away feels the inert danger of seeing a man who isn't her husband, and even confesses to seeing this man the first time they meet, but her husband doesn't see anything the matter and so she is assured that she isnâ(TM)t doing anything wrong. Then over time they start wanting to not be seen together by friends, finding ways to be intimate in the ways they spend their time together, and eventually they can't contain their feelings for one another and express their passion by way of kissing. Director David Lean explores the fact that love is never wrong, while expressly stating that the characters believe the exact opposite. Eventually their small, compact world is torn away from them, and the loss that Laura goes through with his departure, the fact that they never truly get to say goodbye and will never again say hello, is such a bitter and hollow pill to swallow. With the interesting ways this is shot, the texture and feel of this beautiful film and the use of black and white to bring out Johnson and Howard's performances was perpetually brilliant. Just a classic love story unparalleled in this day and age.
  • matertenebraum
    February 10, 2011
    matertenebraum
    Steam ... cut-glass accents ... Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto ... the refreshment room at Milford Junction ... "the shame of the whole thing - the guiltiness, the fear ..." - it all adds up to David Lean's famous film treatment of the Noel Coward tale of love blossoming and wi... read morethering at a suburban railway station. Laura Jesson is a complacent middle-class housewife who gets a piece of grit in her eye one day and is helped by Doctor Alec Harvey, and the romance begins.

    Coward's screenplay is characteristic of his oeuvre. There is the neat precision of the circular plot, beginning and ending with the brainless intrusion of Dolly Messiter, and the matching sub-plot of the Albert-Mrs. Bagot courtship. There are tongue-in-cheek self-references (on the cinema screen, "Flames Of Passion" coming shortly) and the trademark Cowardian grounding in exaggerated Englishness ("One has one's roots, after all"). Most typical of all is that overwrought cascade of middle-class vocabulary (" ...so utterly humiliated and defeated, and so dreadfully, dreadfully ashamed"). Coward patronises working-class people abominably. Albert and Mrs. Bagot amble effortlessly through their romance because, bless them, they are simple folk. Alec and Laura suffer torments, having so much more sensitivity, and, you see, they have reputations to lose ("the furtiveness and the lying outweigh the happiness").

    Having made the transition from editor to director in 1942, Lean was at the helm for the fourth time for "Brief Encounter", all four films being Coward projects - and a highly creditable job he made of this one. The scene in which Alec explains coal-dust inhalation and Laura falls in love is a model of sensitive direction. Reflections of Laura's face in the train window and the make-up mirror suggest in visual terms the existence of her 'other self', the id to her ego. Thundering steam trains and Rachmaninov stand for the irrepressible sexual urge. Stephen Lynn's flat, with its bachelor urbanity, contrasts cleverly with Laura's safe, staid home and safe, staid husband Fred ("I don't understand!") Alec's silent hand on Laura's shoulder is wonderfully poignant, the suppressed emotion eclipsed by stupid Dolly Messiter, her face filling the screen and 'wiping out' the great moment.

    Sex has to be dealt with obliquely, but it is very much the driving-force of the film. "If we control ourselves, and behave like sensible human beings ..." offers Laura hopefully but hollowly. Neither man nor woman is capable of restraint, at least until after the climax in Stephen's flat. The boathouse and the little bridge hint furtively at sexual union. Other reviewers have declared the liaison to be 'unrequited' or 'unconsummated', but I am not so sure. In the grammar of 1940's cinema, the return to the love-nest of tousle-haired, hatless Laura is the equivalent, I would suggest, of our modern bedroom scene. Isn't that why Alec suddenly decides to take the job offer?
  • ajv2688
    October 18, 2010
    ajv2688
    Just because this movie has "Brief" in the title, doesn't mean it's short, it actually felt kind of long and boring. Plus the romance isn't very interesting. It's not bad, but I didn't care for it either.
  • 76Majikat
    July 7, 2010
    76Majikat
    My first viewing of this 40?s classic and a pretty enjoyable watch. Forget the accents for a moment ( in the decades when we were all so terribly posh) the storyline of course of forbidden fruit and adultery in a time when I?m sure it would have been considered a very controvers... read moreial film topic.

    An enjoyable oldie.
  • webalina
    January 20, 2010
    webalina
    Losing love is always awful, as most everyone knows, especially when the love hasn't gone, but circumstances demand it. So this film can hit home to a certain extent with most anybody. Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard were both believable in their roles as the lovers, both married... read more to others. Johnson's scenes where she is thinking about her situation while sitting in her home with her husband nearby are particularly memorable for me. The couple's final moments together were painful and touching. I don't necessarily condone adultery, but I'm also adult enough to know that you can't always choose who you fall in love with. Life isn't always as simple as we would like it to be.
  • Saxia
    June 13, 2009
    Saxia
    Intense acting by Celia Johnson who plays Laura Jesson. Beautiful movie...

    ... read morev style="text-align:center;font-size:10px;">
  • flixsterman
    May 29, 2009
    flixsterman
    I find that I have to keep reminding myself that movies, like books and stage plays, are a form of escapism. They allow us to live other lives vicariously through characters that are usually fictional and always physically detached from ourselves. You see, the thing is this, I ... read moream disturbed by infidelity. Not that I'm naive enough to deny its prevalence, I just despise the mass presentation of it as acceptable and often inevitable. I'm also fully aware that watching a film about such matters (i.e. Casablanca, The Apartment, The Graduate, etc.) isn't going to make adulterers out of us any more than Goodfellas is going to make us gangsters or About Schmidt is going to make us hot-tub at the Kathy Bates estate. Still, no matter how much I rationalize it all, affairs, fictional or otherwise, bother me.

    Why, you ask, am I telling you all this? Only to justify giving this marvelous film four stars instead of the five that it deserves. The missing star is an issue with me, not with David Lean's Brief Encounter.
  • pier007
    January 12, 2009
    pier007
    Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson elicit candor and passion without the need of words, and yet Noel Coward's screenplay is very rich and arouses a huge deal of emotion. All that in the master hand of David Lean signifies a tender and intense romance, a battle inside a woman's heart... read more, captured with the utmost capacity by all those genius and sensitive minds involved in it.

View All Brief Encounter Reviews

Critic Reviews

Keith Uhlich
October 9, 2012
Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York

Sheer perfection-the gold standard of tragic romances whose influence can still be seen to this day. Full Review

Variety Staff
November 6, 2007
Variety Staff, Variety

Cyril Raymond manages to invest the stodgy character with a lovable quality. Full Review

Don Druker
November 6, 2007
Don Druker, Chicago Reader

Rarely rises above the level of the old women's magazines. Full Review

Dave Calhoun
February 9, 2006
Dave Calhoun, Time Out

Some films don't age well, and no doubt Brief Encounter had more of an emotional effect in the social climate of post-war Britain. Full Review

Bosley Crowther
May 20, 2003
Bosley Crowther, New York Times

An uncommonly good little picture -- and one which is frankly designed to appeal to that group of film-goers who are provoked by the 'usual movie tripe.' Full Review

Sean Axmaker
May 4, 2012
Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies Online

... still embraced as one of the most romantic films ever made, and it has earned its reputation. Full Review

Matt Brunson
April 25, 2012
Matt Brunson, Creative Loafing

Haunting in its evocative mood -- one enhanced by Robert Krasker's cinematography and Lean's meticulous, muted direction -- Brief Encounter primarily hinges on the extraordinary performance by Celia J... Full Review

Pablo Villaca
April 15, 2009
Pablo Villaca, Cinema em Cena

Retrata seu par romântico com sensibilidade e complexidade (especialmente para a época), pecando apenas pela insistência em introduzir diversas cenas de alívio cômico conduzidas por Holloway e Carey.

Beth Accomando
March 17, 2009
Beth Accomando, KPBS.org

Lovely, small-scale romance by David Lean.

Steve Crum
October 16, 2008
Steve Crum, Video-Reviewmaster.com

Solid romantic classic directed by David Lean. Johnson and Howard are terrific.

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Brief Encounter Trivia

  • ***Noel Coward's Short Play, Still Life, Was Later Made into Which Film***  Answer »
  • Which actor/producer/director said this quote: "Why should I indulge myself and do a David Lean-ish kind of film? I could do my little Jewish Brief Encounter (1945) and disguise it -shorten the noses. But it wouldn't be as much fun as delivering my dish of insanity".  Answer »
  • In Brief Encounter (1945) the characters of Laura Jesson and Alec Harvey were played by whom?  Answer »
  • The film 'Brief Encounter'...  Answer »
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