Review of Brief Encounter (1945) by Randy T — 28 May 2009

I find that I have to keep reminding myself that movies, like books and stage plays, are a form of escapism. They allow us to live other lives vicariously through characters that are usually fictional and always physically detached from ourselves. You see, the thing is this, I am disturbed by infidelity. Not that I'm naive enough to deny its prevalence, I just despise the mass presentation of it as acceptable and often inevitable. I'm also fully aware that watching a film about such matters (i.e. Casablanca, The Apartment, The Graduate, etc.) isn't going to make adulterers out of us any more than Goodfellas is going to make us gangsters or About Schmidt is going to make us hot-tub at the Kathy Bates estate. Still, no matter how much I rationalize it all, affairs, fictional or otherwise, bother me.

Why, you ask, am I telling you all this? Only to justify giving this marvelous film four stars instead of the five that it deserves. The missing star is an issue with me, not with David Lean's Brief Encounter.