Review of Brief Encounter (1945) by Xac D — 13 Feb 2008

For the most part, Brief Encounter is a very pleasurable film to watch. From its opening-credit shot to the end of its final scene, the film never ceases to captivate its viewersâ?? attention as we follow the frantic quandaries of a hopeless, British housewife and her prodigious, inadvertent love affair. Through this somewhat unique storyline the film not only lends, but demands itself to be told directly from the perspective of its own female protagonist, but this note-worthy point of view is not without its compromises.

Of course, Hollywood as weâ??ve come to know it thus far has presented itself mainly through the eyes of its more masculine viewers, conditioning male critics (such as myself) to an expectation of seeing things their (or our) own way. To put it briefly, Brief Encounter shatters this mold. In fact, the filmâ??s narrating character at times goes so far into her own female psyche that one might often find his or herself forgetting that secondary characters even exist in the film. In an effort to counter this extreme focus on the protagonistâ??s thoughts; one might find his or herself wishing for a greater attempt at character development of the male figures present in the filmâ??s storyline. Instead, the viewer is left with nothing more than a couple of vague, Y-chromosome-bearing stereotypes.

For male and female audiences alike, however, the over-analytical thought processes of this film-noirish, romantic melodrama, are resolved surely not without a sense of completion, successfully redeeming the once, seemingly unfaithful, post-WWII, British housewife to her sometimes unappreciative husband. However, with as little as weâ??re told about this man by the filmâ??s resolve, one can only hope for the rediscovery of his and his wifeâ??s devotion to not live on as anything more than a Brief Encounter.