David Lean's criminally underseen THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS has often been hastily dismissed as a weak "sequel" to his earlier masterpiece BRIEF ENCOUNTER. It's not. While it isn't the classic BRIEF ENCOUNTER is (not many films are), it has much to recommend. And it's not a sequel at all. Yes, it does deal with the same central theme of BRIEF ENCOUNTER (a married woman having an affair), and is a follow-up in the sense that the couple meet again years later, but the characters are entirely different.
The film is told in a non-linear fashion, with lots of flashing forwards and backwards (it works well, yet is occasionally distracting). The plot basically is this: beautiful Mary (cool blonde Ann Todd, who had scored a huge hit with THE SEVENTH VEIL four years later and had recently married Lean) is in love with a young student Stephen (Trevor Howard), yet marries Claude Rains. Stephen and Mary drift into an affair after her marriage, and they are found out by an enraged (yet off-camera) Claude Rains. Years pass, and Todd, still the dutiful, notably childless wife of Rains, runs into Howard while they are both holidaying. The encounter is entirely innocent, yet Rains again finds out and assumes the pair are re-starting something that is now dead (Howard has since married, and had children). All this almost ends in tragedy, as Rains discovers how much Todd really does mean to him.
Todd's somewhat detached screen presence works well for her character. The film is adapted from a short story by H.G Wells that explores an emancipated, beautiful young woman who rejects passion in favour of security. A poignant and telling scene between Howard and Todd early in the picture displays this notion- Howard:If two people love each other, they want to belong to each other. Todd: I want to belong to myself Howard: Then your life will be a failure Todd's marriage to Rains is a union of convenience. She can have the finer things in life she is accustomed to, she has the freedom to do as she pleases, and she's secure. Rains seems happy with this arrangement, telling himself that his love for her is also without true passion, until the crucial, revealing final scenes. These scenes constitute some of Rain's finest emotional work on film, as he spits at Ann Todd that she has treated him with all the kindness "that she would treat a dog". Rains comes to realise that his love for Mary is indeed "of the romantic kind", the same love that he denounces to Howard earlier in the picture. However, Todd, trance-like and thinking she has ruined several lives (potentially breaking up Howard's marriage, and also her own), walks to the train station and tries to commit suicide, ANNA KARENINA-like (she gets her own Garbo moment!). Rains, having followed her, pulls her back and takes her back home with him. While not a comforting ending, it seems to fit the picture well .
As I said earlier, Rains is excellent, and this is one of his best performances. Unfortunately audiences tend to take the wonderful Trevor Howard for granted, and he is always an assured presence. Todd's beauty seems to be worshiped by husband Lean who gives her plenty of exquisite close-ups. As with THE SEVENTH VEIL, Todd is asked to carry much of the narrative weight of the film (the flashbacks and so forth), yet she works well and is particularly effective in a painfully bittersweet scene in which she imagines Howard as her husband, taking her into her arms, instead of Rains.
The film is told in a non-linear fashion, with lots of flashing forwards and backwards (it works well, yet is occasionally distracting). The plot basically is this: beautiful Mary (cool blonde Ann Todd, who had scored a huge hit with THE SEVENTH VEIL four years later and had recently married Lean) is in love with a young student Stephen (Trevor Howard), yet marries Claude Rains. Stephen and Mary drift into an affair after her marriage, and they are found out by an enraged (yet off-camera) Claude Rains. Years pass, and Todd, still the dutiful, notably childless wife of Rains, runs into Howard while they are both holidaying. The encounter is entirely innocent, yet Rains again finds out and assumes the pair are re-starting something that is now dead (Howard has since married, and had children). All this almost ends in tragedy, as Rains discovers how much Todd really does mean to him.
Todd's somewhat detached screen presence works well for her character. The film is adapted from a short story by H.G Wells that explores an emancipated, beautiful young woman who rejects passion in favour of security. A poignant and telling scene between Howard and Todd early in the picture displays this notion- Howard:If two people love each other, they want to belong to each other. Todd: I want to belong to myself Howard: Then your life will be a failure Todd's marriage to Rains is a union of convenience. She can have the finer things in life she is accustomed to, she has the freedom to do as she pleases, and she's secure. Rains seems happy with this arrangement, telling himself that his love for her is also without true passion, until the crucial, revealing final scenes. These scenes constitute some of Rain's finest emotional work on film, as he spits at Ann Todd that she has treated him with all the kindness "that she would treat a dog". Rains comes to realise that his love for Mary is indeed "of the romantic kind", the same love that he denounces to Howard earlier in the picture. However, Todd, trance-like and thinking she has ruined several lives (potentially breaking up Howard's marriage, and also her own), walks to the train station and tries to commit suicide, ANNA KARENINA-like (she gets her own Garbo moment!). Rains, having followed her, pulls her back and takes her back home with him. While not a comforting ending, it seems to fit the picture well .
As I said earlier, Rains is excellent, and this is one of his best performances. Unfortunately audiences tend to take the wonderful Trevor Howard for granted, and he is always an assured presence. Todd's beauty seems to be worshiped by husband Lean who gives her plenty of exquisite close-ups. As with THE SEVENTH VEIL, Todd is asked to carry much of the narrative weight of the film (the flashbacks and so forth), yet she works well and is particularly effective in a painfully bittersweet scene in which she imagines Howard as her husband, taking her into her arms, instead of Rains.