Brief Encounter

Brief Encounter (1945) is a British film directed by David Lean starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard.

Synopsis

Two happily married people, both with children, both middle-class, meet by chance at a busy railway station. Laura Jesson always goes into town on Thursdays to go shopping or return books to the library and borrow some new ones. Dr. Alec Harvey is a general practitioner who, on Thursdays, has his practice closed while he regularly stands in at a hospital for Dr. Stephen Lynn, a colleague and friend of his.

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Laura and Alec meet for the first time when he helps her remove a piece of grit from her eye. Their perfectly harmless meetings eventually turn into a love affair, which they keep secret from everyone else. As they have no other place to go, they intend to have sex at Dr. Lynn's flat. But Dr. Lynn comes home early from London and catches them together in his flat. Laura feels like a cheap prostitute, and it becomes clear for both of them that they will have to give each other up. Dr. Harvey, who has been offered a job in South Africa, now leaps at the chance. Their final meeting, again in the refreshment room where they saw each other for the first time, is spoiled by the arrival of Dolly Messiter, a distant friend of Laura's, who keeps talking and clinging to them so that there is no way for them to say good-bye to each other properly. Arriving home, Laura relives the affair in her memory and is comforted by her husband.

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