All very considered. I love that film and find it absolutely heartbreaking. I’ve always thought he was a chancer who leads her on a hen bottles out when it gets too heavy.
Yes, totally agree! I have always seen Alec as a predator. One of my favourite films and I too visited Carnforth last year when my son graduated. Gorgeous little museum that shows the film on a loop.
So I believe, although I have a sudden memory of a guy that used to work there that I saw all the time at gigs and haven't thought about in two decades. Wonder what became of him.
This is really good. I saw the film when I was living through very similar and didn't find it romantic at all, only heartbreaking. The ending was my favourite thing about it
Texting is different to what amounts to maybe less than 24 hours in each other’s company tho. I can see how it could happen that way. I think it’s also complicated in the film in that we get chapter & verse on her innermost thoughts but he’s a blank canvas (cos I think the film is about her really)
Alec is such a cad!! Write something similar, though far less carefully considered, when I saw it for the first time a while back https://boxd.it/5pdpmd
I remembered sth you said in your review about him putting words into her head when I saw it again last week - and really noticed it this time. That said I was also reading some convincing stuff about how Coward might have written it with a true, clandestine gay relationship in mind, so who knows!
Very much enjoyed this. Kicking myself for not making a detour to Carnforth when nearby now. Brief Encounter, and the play it's based on, is a bit of recurring theme in A Very Great Profession which I'm currently reading. Differences between the play and the film are interesting!
Watching the film again one thing that struck me is that Alec has two moments of possibly truthful emotion, and they’re the only moments we see him outside Laura’s narration: stealing a glance at her making the tea in the hut, and his shame when confronted by his colleague.
One that gives pause for thought is he DOES bother turning up to say goodbye after he’s explained the Johannesburg thing. But also some men are just Like That - they truly think they can be in love with someone after a few meetings then realise what they’ve got themselves into. And I don’t buy it.
Also - maybe I have just thought about this too much but I sometimes wonder about a gay subtext between Alec and the colleague, although it would be quite bold for 1945
Well, they never once mention the war, so I propose the theory that everybody in the film is dead, with the waiting room a sort of way station for souls. Laura’s husband has accepted his lot, but Laura is a restless spirit. A “job in Johannesburg” is code for moving on to either Heaven or Hell.
Great piece. "It's funny how being somewhere so close to where you live, yet have never visited before, can be so discombobulating." That's something I have felt but not articulated. Also I had no idea the film was set (or filmed) in the North: I assumed it was, you know, Waterloo or somewhere.
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Watching the film again one thing that struck me is that Alec has two moments of possibly truthful emotion, and they’re the only moments we see him outside Laura’s narration: stealing a glance at her making the tea in the hut, and his shame when confronted by his colleague.