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Brief Encounter

1945

David Lean

Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey ...

8.0

13,161

Romance. Drama Laura Jesson is a country housewife bored with the security of her husband and family. She goes into town once a week for shopping and a matinee picture. On one of her weekly excursions, she accidentally meets Dr. Alec Harvey in the waiting room of the railroad station. Both are early middle-aged, married, and have two children each. Enjoying one another's company, they continue to meet weekly for coffee in the waiting room of the ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Michael Mirasol rogerebert.com	"The decision to film at a train station is a masterstroke (...) It is courageous, sincere, and incredibly romantic."	POS
United Kingdom	David Thomson The Guardian	"It is so well made (...) Laura's voiceover narration is truly anguished and dreamy (...) The music suckers all of us (...) Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard are perfect"	POS
United States	Mike D'Angelo AV Club	"[A] masterpiece of British restraint and repression (...) The experience of involuntarily embracing someone who threatens to destroy your life has never been more exquisitely realized, in all its glory and misery."	POS
United States	Bosley Crowther The New York Times	"The whole thing has been presented in such a delicate and affecting way—and with such complete naturalness in characterization and fidelity to middle-class detail—that those slight discrepancies in logic may be easily allowed."	POS
United Kingdom	Tom Dawson BBC	"A poignant illustration of how social conventions can crush an individual's dreams of happiness (...) 'Brief Encounter's vision of forbidden love endures (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Tom Huddleston Time Out	"One of the most emotionally devastating movies of all time (...) 'Brief Encounter' is so much more than just a tale of two lovers (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Caroline Westbrook Empire	"Its value lies above all in its realistic description of provincial, middle class English life (...) Celia Johnson is undeniably moving (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Clayton Dillard Slant	"[It] ultimately raises the stakes of Laura’s individual well-being by transforming her anxieties into those of the United Kingdom as a whole (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	David Parkinson Radio Times	"One of the finest films ever made in Britain (...) What makes the illicit love between doctor Trevor Howard and housewife Celia Johnson so memorable is their sheer ordinariness (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Don Druker Chicago Reader	"[It] survives more as a social document than a genuinely compelling drama"	NEU

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