BRIEF ENCOUNTER Movie Review

Noel Coward's one-act play Still Life was the basis for David Lean's classy tearjerker about two strangers—both married—who meet by chance and gradually come to the realization that they've fallen in love. Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard broke moviegoers'hearts and made grown men—and women—sniffle in theatres the world over when they decided to do the right thing, to go home to their spouses and to never see each other again. (It's been described as the story of upper lips so stiff they're afraid to touch.) A good part of Brief Encounter's continuing appeal is the audience's ability to vicariously share in the “nobility” of the lovers’ decision, which constitutes a nearly foolproof gimmick. After all, if you're carrying on an affair yourself, you get to imagine for a moment what it must be like to be brave, courageous, and honorable; if you're not involved with someone else (and perhaps regretting it), you get to pride yourself on never having succumbed. Johnson and Howard's restrained performances help enormously, but it's Lean's elegant craftsmanship that ultimately saves the day, preventing Coward's supremely British domestic fairy tale from being an insufferably maudlin wallow, and turning it instead into a canny, satisfyingly guilty pleasure. If only Lean had lost the Rachmaninoff. (For a darker twist on a similar marital sacrifice, see Douglas Sirk's claustrophobic 1956 gem There's Always Tomorrow, with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck.)

NEXT STOP … Strangers on a Train, There's Always Tomorrow, Le Bonheur

1946 86m/B GB Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Cyril Raymond, Joyce Carey, Everley Gregg, Margaret Barton, Dennis Harkin, Valentine Dyall, Marjorie Mars, Irene Handl; D: David Lean; W: Noel Coward, David Lean, Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan; C: Robert Krasker. New York Film Critics Awards ‘46: Best Actress (Johnson); Nominations: Academy Awards ‘46: Best Actress (Johnson), Best Director (Lean), Best Screenplay. VHS PAR, HMV