Brief Encounter

film by Lean [1945]

Written by Lee Pfeiffer

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Brief Encounter, British film drama, released in 1945, that pivots on the subject of forbidden love, as set against the strictures of suburban British life. The film, based on Noël Coward’s play Still Life, was one of director David Lean’s first great successes.

At an English train station, middle-class housewife Laura Jesson (played by Celia Johnson) meets the handsome married doctor Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard). A friendly conversation over tea leads to a series of arranged meetings, and a platonic relationship gradually develops. Eventually, however, the two realize they are in love with each other and become agonized by guilt over their feelings. After a thwarted attempt at a private rendezvous, their future as a couple is decided when Alec announces he has accepted a job in South Africa.

The low-key production was filmed in London during the dreary aftermath of the post-World War II years and found favour both at home and abroad. Brief Encounter is an emotionally shattering film directed with great sensitivity by Lean, who carefully handled the rising tension over whether Laura and Alec’s relationship would turn physical. The film neither sentimentalizes nor vilifies the pair’s spouses, conveying the idea that one could be in love with one person but still fall in love with another. The acclaimed sound track features Sergey Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor.