Brief Encounter-Review-2a

David Lean’s “Brief Encounter” captures love at its most ephemeral. It depicts the emotional affair between two middle-aged married people aware enough to know their relationship is unsustainable but too helpless to stop themselves, like they’re witnessing the slowest, most beautiful car crash in history. Housewife Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and idealistic Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) move furtively in the shadows of British suburbia, hiding their love from their families and the repressed society, wanting to hold on to each other for as long as they can until the inevitable happens. They are just two ordinary people who live ordinary lives, but for a brief period of time, the two of them stand on the edge of something extraordinary. Every Thursday, Laura takes the train to the nearby town of Milford to shop and go see a movie matinee. One day on her return trip home, she accidentally gets grit in her eye and jumps into the Milford railway station refreshment room to try to get it out, only for Dr. Harvey to come to her aid. The two of them part ways thinking nothing of their chance meeting, but after that Laura and Alec keep accidentally running into each other. Finally, the two have lunch and catch a movie together, and by the end of their casual date, Alec wants to meet up again next week. Soon their innocent relationship develops into something much deeper and more passionate as the two admit to each other that they’re in love. Eventually, Laura starts lying to her friends and family, and after an awkward brush with complete exposure, the two decide to end their relationship knowing that they can never be together. Adapted from the Noel Coward play “Still Life,” “Brief Encounter” tells a simple love story, but it’s the way Lean captures Laura and Alec’s private affair that elevates the film to tragic heights. Lean follows Coward’s lead and limits the film’s settings mostly to dark confined spaces — train stations, refreshment rooms, movie theaters, narrow alleyways — and occasionally an empty open space, like the quiet bridge overlooking a small stream in the country, so as to create the feeling that Laura and Alec’s love is removed from space and time. Lean treats these environments like they’re way station’s on life’s journey, fantasy places you can briefly occupy before returning to reality. Lean also makes sure to depict their love’s realistic gradual development, beginning with accidental encounters and small glances, moving up to private jokes and intimate conversations, and finally culminating in bold declarations and passionate embraces. But even more importantly, Lean depicts their love as inevitable.