by Marilyn Justine

Created on: April 19, 2009   Last Updated: June 12, 2009

Brief Encounter was seen as a controversial and rather risque film upon it's initial release in 1945. Hopwever it is unquestionably one of the best British films ever made. Having a middle-aged married woman fall in love with a stranger at a railway station and carry out an illicit affair was a taboo subject in Britain at the time. However, the depth and feeling that Celia Johnson adds to the basic plot changed this view very quickly.

David Lean followed up his zany comedy Blithe Spirit with this simple but brutally honest social melodrama. Perhaps here, for the first time in British cinema, a film so closely follows the deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings of an average housewife. Johnson gives a wonderfully understated and poignant performance, a rarity from an actress who worked almost exclusively on stage.

It's not hard to see why Johnson is so well respected for her gutsy performance as Laura Jesson. Not only do her guilt-ridden and tortured voice-overs give her authority, but she also takes control of situations, making her more real and alive than all the prescription superstars' in Hollywood.

Although co-star Trevor Howard is a respected actor he seems almost faceless beside his dominant leading lady, who truly steals the picture from him. Howard came into his own in a number of British war films of the period but there is is completely overshadowed by his leading lady. This may have been Johnson's only memorable role, but what a performance she gave. She make it real, sorid, beautiful and irresistable, even if the viewer does not see the attraction on Howard, their raw emotion is there. The viewer relates to the character of the married, middle-aged woman whether they are young, old, male, female or a middle-aged British woman like Johnson, which is a remarkable achivement from this actress.

Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey provide light humour as a working class couple that flirt daily over the tearoom counter. The mass of innuendo exchanged between the two is completely irrelevant to the plot but also proves intensely amusing. The scenes in the train tea room are hilarious.

The film does a distinctly unusual thing by managing to remain unsentimental. Despite following the extra-marital love of two people who know they can never be together, it interestingly never becomes gushy or too hard to stomach. However this is mainly due to the homely and timid creature Johnson creates out of the Laura in her script and not due to the script itself.

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