Dec. 12, 2022
Brief Encounter / Rich & Rare Reserve
Bob and Brad wrap up their mini-series of three films by director David Lean with his 1945 British masterpiece Brief Encounter. This aching romantic drama follows two ordinary, married people in pre-war England who quickly fall in love but know they cannot remain together. Our hosts discuss Celia Johnson's brilliant performance, as well as Lean and screenwriter Noel Coward's insistence on making these characters as relatable as possible, to devastating effect.
Meanwhile, they try a budget Canadian whisky, Rich & Rare Reserve. Will this blended whisky be worth more than its $9 price point?
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Transcript
Brad
In 1945, director David Lean and star Celia Johnson gave the world a quietly sorrowful picture about the dangers of falling in love after one is married.Bob
In 2022, we try a blended whiskey that may or may not be what it claims to be. The film is Brief Encounter. The whiskey is Rich and Rare Reserve.Brad
And we'll review them both. This is The Film and Whiskey Podcast.Bob
Welcome to The Film and Whiskey Podcast, where each week we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G.
And this week, we are finishing up our mini series of films by the director David Lean. We went in reverse chronological order, starting with 1962's Lawrence of Arabia. We threw it back five years from there to Bridge on the River Kwai.
And now we're going all the way back to 1945 in Great Britain. And we are watching Brief Encounter, a movie that lots of movie critics and film people know and love. It's very appreciated.
It's still considered like an all-time classic in Britain. But Americans don't know it to the extent that they know, you know, David Lean's Hollywood movies. I saw this movie for the first time just about a year ago, Brad.
And I can't stop thinking about it. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this movie ever since. And I gave it like an eight out of ten the first time I saw it.
But it has haunted me since then. And upon this rewatch, I can already tell you that score is coming up. But I was so excited to have the opportunity to kind of squeeze it in here by sandwiching it with other David Lean movies.
And I don't know, man, I'm really, really excited to talk about this movie. I have a feeling this might be the least seen of all 32 movies that we have on this season's list. And I don't care because I think it's a movie people should see.Brad
Yeah, I came into this mostly blind. You had just told me it's a really quiet British movie about people who kind of fall in love and they shouldn't have. And that was like about all I knew.
Man, I really enjoyed this movie. Yeah, and not in like, like it was fun. But in like, man, that's like brutally honest.
And we need movies like this in the world.Bob
Yeah, we were talking just a little bit before we press record, and we kind of stopped ourselves because we wanted to get it all on the pod. But we were saying that, you know, this movie doesn't talk down to its audience and it doesn't talk down to its characters. It treats everybody as an adult and as an adult with agency.
And, you know, it's a story about two married people who fall in love for no apparent reason, almost like there's no rhyme or reason to it. Something that just happens to them almost passively. And I love that this movie doesn't really judge its characters, especially its lead character played by Celia Johnson.
It's, you know, she's a smart woman. She's not trapped in some sort of loveless marriage. It's not as if her husband is at home beating her or something.
It's just like, hey, what would happen if you, the audience, found yourself in a situation like this? And how do you deal with that in a mature way? And I love that it just treats everybody, including the audience, like a grown up.
And it is very, very rare to see subject matter like this portrayed that way.Brad
Also, 1945 with a female lead. Yeah, told from a female perspective. Told from a female perspective.
That's pretty progressive for its time. Absolutely.Bob
Good job, David Lean. There you go, David. So this was written by Noel Coward, who is, again, a very famous British person.
If you've never heard of him, I understand. But at one point he was the highest grossing author in the world because he was so popular in Britain. He was kind of a wunderkind.
Like he came up in the theater and wrote a bunch of plays and then came to New York at a young age and kind of figured out the rhythm of Broadway shows and took that back to Britain and started writing his plays with a very particular pace and dialogue style that people came to mimic. And he had such an influence on British culture that, like I said, he became like the most popular author in Britain for a period of time. He ended up being in movies.
He kind of reminds me in some ways of like a more refined Orson Welles. I was literally just about to say, yeah. He had that sort of a trajectory to his life.
And so, you know, this is based on one of his plays. He helped adapt the screenplay. And I really love now.
I don't even just say like the pace or the rhythm of the dialogue here, Brad, but there are just so many lines in this movie that you hear them and you're like, oh, that's an effective line. And then when you see it written on the page, I feel like you could take this script and put it in book form and it would be even more profound because when you see the text spelled out in front of you, like there's just so many quotes that I wrote down from this movie.Brad
Well, and it's it's such an incredible script in the fact that it gives you characters that we've all seen, and yet they don't feel like tired or overused tropes like, you know, I'm thinking of the very opening scene when the character named Dolly Messiter sits down and starts gossiping and chitter chattering. And every single one of us has a friend like that, right? That like no matter where you see them, you just kind of sigh a little bit on the inside and like brace yourself for the next seven minutes of a barrage of verbose.
Just you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. And like every single character in this movie is somebody that we all know, and it makes the movie incredibly intimate.
It makes it something that feels lived in something that any of us could experience. And I think that's what makes the main thrust of the plot so effective is the fact that it feels like any of us could live out this story. Yeah.Bob
All right. Before we get any further, it's almost time for us to throw over to Brad Explains, which is America's favorite segment of this podcast. But before we get there, whether you're a first time listener or a long time listener, we want to encourage you to check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash Film Whiskey. Look, guys, we do this for pretty much free and we spend a lot of money on whiskey. It's a lot of time to edit this series. And so if we have offered any value to your life, consider becoming a member.
You can join at three different tiers. Three dollars, five dollars, seven dollars a month. At all three tiers, you get a ton of bonus perks, including access to a special discord server that Brad and I are on like every single day talking with members of Film and Whiskey Nation at the seven dollar a month tier.
You get specific episodes that are just for patrons at that tier. You get unedited episodes. All of our patrons get early access to everything and they're all ad free.
So if you'd like to consider joining, you can find us at patreon.com slash Film Whiskey. Brad, it's time for Brad Explains. This is the part of the podcast where my wonderful co-host breaks down the plot of the movie that he has just seen, often for the first time.
Now, back in season one, Brad used to take these things for four or five, six minutes at a time and do just a really great detailed job of breaking down the plot. But what we have found is that it's much more fun to just put 60 seconds on the clock and see if he can fit the plot of the movie into just one minute. Brad, you think you can do it today?
I think this might be the easiest one I've ever done.Brad
All right. You have 60 seconds on the clock and go. A suburban British woman finds herself falling in love with a stranger that she meets at the railway station, and the movie tells the story of their falling in love and realizing that they can never be together since they're both married.
It's about it. That's pretty much it.Bob
Yeah. So I guess what I want to start with today is the plot of this movie. And I mean, pretty much everything about the movie would indicate that this is like an overly sappy, overwrought melodrama that, you know, people are going to be running up and downstairs and screaming after Rhett Butler and the violin strings will swell.
You know what I mean? It just has that. It seems like it's going to be one of those movies.
And it's not like there is a there's a sense of melodrama to it. Like there's this classical Rachmaninoff that plays through the whole movie, but everything about it is so grounded. Like the people in it are ordinary people.
David Lean, I mean, very famously did not hire the most glamorous movie stars to play his leads. It's just like the emphasis in everything about this movie is this could happen to you. And this is a story of ordinary people who live ordinary lives.
And what if?Brad
And I feel like this is an indie film before indie films were a thing. What do you mean by that? Well, it just has that vibe of a director wanting to do something artistic and just having a really small budget and a small amount of time to film the project and just knocking it out of the park.
Yeah, for sure.Bob
Yeah. And to your point, Brad, like I want to talk about this idea of melodrama versus realism because this movie, I mean, it's obviously not a documentary, but there is something about the decisions that David Lean makes as a director that pulls this out of being an overwrought melodrama into something that's much more emotionally affecting.Brad
Yeah, there there's a I like that you use the word realism. There's just a lived in feeling about this movie where anybody can imagine themselves having a chance encounter with another human being and that chance encounter turning into something more and like almost not even realizing that it turned into something more until you reflect on it. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think that's one of the most powerful parts of the movie. It's honestly this is one of the few movies where I'd say that the constant narration never gets old and it always feels like it adds to the movie. And the way you're able to get into, you know, Laura's mind, the main character really helps flesh out who she is as a person.
And I think it's it's paired with her physical acting like you hear her inner thoughts, but you see what she is looking like, and it's almost a reminder that every single person we ever interact with has a very rich and intense inner thought life that we are never privy to. And I man there. Yeah, it's amazing how he was able to capture the essence of of any human's experience of accidentally falling in love after you've already been married.Bob
So let's talk a little bit about the way this movie is set up. When Noel Coward wrote the play that this script is based on, it was a very short one act play, and David Lienfelder didn't really have a lot of dramatic like tension in it. There was no thrust to it, and it told the bones of this story.
But he basically said, look, you got to do something to hook the audience. And he basically pitched Noel Coward on the idea of starting with the last scene in mind. And so you see this scene play out where these two people look very distraught, and they're sitting in like a refreshment stand waiting on trains to come, and they're very clearly have something going on between them.
And there's a longing there, and it's interrupted by somebody else coming to sit down, and something feels very unfinished about it. And then you follow this woman home, and she's very obviously like zoning out, and her husband can't really connect with her. And she starts crying, and they sit down, and they turn on some music, and then she goes into this reverie.
And that's where the movie kicks into gear. She starts narrating as a confessional to her husband, basically. She's like, hey, I will never be able to tell you this out loud, but this is what I would want to tell you.
And she goes all the way back through this relationship that she's had with this man for the last seven weeks. And I love the way this movie is structured, Brad, because David Lien hit the nail on the head. Like, it's a slower moving film.
I don't even call it slow moving. It's a quiet movie. And if he didn't kind of employ the bag of tricks that he does to keep the narrative as fresh as possible, and to use those, I don't want to call them gimmicks, but like those devices, like the narration, and like the cross-cutting between the present and the past, I think this would be like a very inert movie.
And so he does a lot to keep it flowing and using the like the final sequence at the beginning so that you can come around full circle to it at the end. And it has that much more meaning really is a brilliant touch.Brad
Yeah, the more I think about that final scene where they're sitting, you know, in the in the tea in the refreshment shop and that, you know, the stupid lady starts coming in talking to them like you at the start of the movie, you're like, oh, this is an annoying woman who's interrupting something. And at the end of it, you find in your own heart, you're like, damn it. Like, you are ruining this.
You suck. You're the worst. Like, this is their final time they'll ever see one another.
And it's just ruined. But then, like, the reality is when you sit with that for a while, you're like, that's real life. Like, yes, there's no there's no opportune time to have an affair.
Well, yeah.Bob
And so, you know what I mean? I mean, not even just that, but like, you know, he builds such dramatic tension. And and I don't know what the word is, but he magnifies the ordinary to the point where it becomes like, no, don't you understand, you stupid woman?
This is the greatest love story ever told. And you're ruining it right now. And what it really is, is this seven week.
I don't want to call it a fling, but kind of a fling between two ordinary people and they have an ordinary goodbye and they never see each other again. And it really makes you think about, like, how often are these sorts of comings and goings going on in the world around us at all time? And you hit the nail on the head earlier, man, when you were talking about the interior life of everybody around you and how these many tragedies are playing out and how, you know, they seem so small in the grand scheme of things.
But to the people in them, it's the greatest story that they could write. You know what I mean? Yeah, man, this movie just gets me thinking about these things.Brad
Yeah. And that's really what gets me about this film is that it tells the the emotional roller coaster of a few weeks of this woman's life. And yet, you know, like she talks about the the before and the after of her life are going to be full like she has people around her that she loves and cares for and that support her.
And her husband is a good husband, you know, not perfect as no husband is, you know, perfect, but he like he genuinely loves and cares for. I love the performance of her husband. He like he plays the loving and supportive, yet slightly witless husband just perfectly.
And you see how devastating it can be when we allow our inner emotions to overrule our good judgment and our commitment to something that we promised ourselves to. You know what I mean?Bob
Let's talk about these performances, because there's really only two big ones in the film to talk about. And let's start with Celia Johnson. She is the star of this movie.
She didn't make a lot of movies. You know, she gets nominated for an Oscar for this film. And she was an actress of, I would say, moderate success in film, but she just didn't appear in a ton of them.
And so she's not somebody that you might necessarily recognize, even if you're very familiar with British cinema. You know, again, Brad, we always take great effort to not talk about people's looks in a movie, unless it's integral to the plot or there's a very obvious reason to. And by no means am I saying that she is like an unattractive woman or anything like that.
But it was a very deliberate choice by David Lean to cast Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in this movie because they don't look like your standard movie stars and they look like ordinary people. They're a little bit older than what you might expect for leading people in a movie like this. And I think the fact that this movie is filmed in 1945, you know, right as the war is wrapping up and British people have been through this hellscape for the last decade.
You know, when I look at Celia Johnson on screen, even compared to pictures of her in other films, she looks like she's about 15 pounds underweight. Do you know what I mean? And there's just a tiredness about her.
And it may just be the fact that she's been living in Britain during the war. And yet, like, it is such a great reflection of the people whose butts are in the seats watching this movie, like every decision, even the fact that she hardly wears any makeup throughout the movie. And you can see the creases in her forehead.
And it's just, you know, I'm not trying to describe her as like a haggard looking woman. She's not. She just looks like a regular person.
And it is so rare to see that, especially in films of the 1940s.Brad
Well, and you really for me, at least I found myself being more attracted to her as the movie went on. Like there's almost a reality where as you learn more about her inner life and the struggle that she's going through, you appreciate who she is and the life that she's lived. And I don't know about you, man.
But for me, I was like, oh, she's she's not just a, you know, average middle aged woman. I'm like, oh, like she has attractive qualities about her. And I think what I'm saying is you can understand how, you know, Dr. Harvey would also fall in love with her.Bob
All right. And that's a great segue into talking about Trevor Howard as Dr. Harvey. Now, Trevor Howard was a much more well-known actor, especially after this movie.
He made a ton of movies in America, and he is, you know, he plays a doctor. So he's a man of some means in this movie. And he seems very dapper compared to, you know, the rest of the middle class people in this movie.
And yet when you stand him up next to somebody like, I don't know, what's another British actor of the time, like a David Niven, you know, like even David Niven would seem would seem much more sophisticated. You know, this role couldn't have been played by Cary Grant. You know what I'm saying?
Like, there's a sense of like, he is the best looking ordinary person in this small village. And again, like it works so, so well for this movie.Brad
Yeah, I think what I really appreciated about him is that you don't really get I'm trying to remember, does he have one little moment where he gets a inner monologue narration?Bob
I don't I don't believe so. I think the whole thing is from her perspective.Brad
OK, so I think that he does an incredible job at portraying his inner life without the opportunity to have a narrative bit the way that Celia Johnson does. Does that make sense? Like throughout the film, you can feel his energy of I want this woman, but I know it's wrong.
And I'm not sure how to handle this situation. And I think that he just does an incredible job with his physicality of conveying his desires and trying to reconcile them with the reality of his and her situation.Bob
Well, before we go to break, let's let's dive a little bit deeper on the sort of dramatic stakes here on that situation that you're referring to, because, again, there is something to be said here about the fact that this movie is not judging its characters. It's not looking down on its characters. And it's portraying the fact that, you know, Laura is not in an unhappy marriage.
Her husband might be, to your point, like a little aloof. And, you know, there's times where he comes up and he's like, ah, fix me my dinner. You know what I mean?
And it's like, oh, that didn't age well. And yet it's very clear that he loves her and she loves him. And the whole reason that she meets Trevor Howard's character is because she goes into the city to buy her husband a birthday present because she loves him.
And it's like it does a really good job of depicting a marriage that maybe it's a little bit stale, but it's certainly not an unhappy marriage. And I think that that level of nuance adds even more to the movie. It adds more to her guilt and it adds more to, I guess, the dramatic stakes of like this thing over here is much more exciting and shiny and new and romantic and maybe even deeper than what she has with her husband.
But it's also not like there's something driving her to him that's a negative about her home life.Brad
Yeah, it's literally just the fantasy of it all. Like it came out of nowhere. It hit both of them, you know, just broadsided them unexpectedly.
And they're left trying to, you know, shake their heads clear of this fog that has enveloped their souls. And it lean just does such an incredible job, I think, of portraying the roller coaster that it is to try and have an affair, like to to try to display the difficulty of hiding it and the difficulty of managing your own emotions. And, you know, when when Trevor Howard delivers the line talking about like, did you spend the last week promising yourself seven times a day that you wouldn't come here today?
Because I know I did that as well. And, you know, she like nods her head to it. And it's like he gives voice to all of the emotive realities that would go on in a person's heart and in their mind as they're trying to figure out this thing that's happening to them.Bob
Yeah, and I think what I love so much about it is, you know, especially like in American media, there's there's a scene in every movie where a character says the line like I've met someone else. And you know that what's going to happen after that is there's a confessional and then the marriage falls apart and you get the dramatic divorce story, right? Like this, you know, the way that this could go is Kramer versus Kramer or marriage story or whatever.
And there's something so much more, I don't know, compelling, almost or like rich about the idea where the line I've met someone else is never delivered out loud and it's only delivered in someone's head towards their spouse. And even though, you know, there's a there's a but after it, I've met someone else, but it's over and you don't have to worry about that anymore. It's still unspoken and it's still something that gets locked up in her heart forever.
And man, there's just something so compelling and so heartbreaking. And, you know, I don't want to call it more romantic. It's not more romantic, but it's more.
I don't know what the word is, man.Brad
I mean, it's kind of like a Casablanca ending. Yeah, right. Like like she chooses duty and honor and she chooses the commitment that she committed to all those years ago.
And I think that's what I love about this movie is that in the end, like she doesn't choose her heart. She chooses her duty and she chooses the covenant that she made with her husband all those years ago. Now, did she was there a dalliance?
Was there, you know, cheating? Yes. Like she very clearly, emotionally and physically cheated on her husband.
But that was not her ultimate end. Her ultimate end was returning to her husband. And that final line of the movie that you texted me is just heart wrenching, beautiful because, you know, that the emotions of her life are in the dread, like just in the dumps.
But the honor and dignity that she brings to the relationship by not straying from it, you know, long, not breaking it asunder, tearing it apart. It's honorable. Yeah.
And it's just it's a it's a a study in contrast that you don't often see in American movies.Bob
Yeah. Hold that thought for one second, because I want to come back to that. And I think that's a good place to end.
But I think that the word that I would use when I'm describing this whole thing is that it's more tragic in a way than the common, like divorce movie. And it's, you know, it's a study in gray areas, I guess, or like there's grades to it. But are there are there shades of gray?
There's 50 shades of them, you know. 50 of them.Bob
Wow.Bob
That's very specific. But I feel like it's one thing to see the tragedy play out in life. Do you know what I mean?
Like somebody confesses infidelity and then a divorce happens and a family is torn apart. And there's a very tragic element to that. But there's also something so rich and complex and compelling about watching the mini tragedy of somebody having to hold this secret inside.
And it really speaks to this idea. And, you know, you talked about the idea of marriage being a covenant. I really think that this movie says a lot about the sacrifices that people make to remain in a steady marriage.
And I am not at all saying that, like, all marriages have secrets like this, nor should they. And I'm also not suggesting that, like, all marriages are beneath the surface, very unhappy and people are looking elsewhere. That's not what I'm saying.
But what I am saying is at the end of the day, like this movie ends in a place where she has resolved herself to keep this thing a secret because it's over and because she is committed to her husband and she never really strayed from that. And you get this final image. Back to your point, Brad, the whole movie, they've been returning to her just kind of sitting on this couch, zoning out, remembering.
And every once in a while, they would show a shot from her point of view where her husband is across the room doing a crossword puzzle and not paying any attention to her. And at the end of the movie, they come back to her and they cut back to her husband. And it's a much closer shot than her point of view.
And he's staring directly at her. And it is so jarring because for the first time he's noticed what's going on with her. And you just like in that moment, you're like, oh, he knows.
Like he, he knows. And he walks over to her and then like in a very British way, neither of them ever acknowledged what happened. Right.
And yet they both acknowledge what happened. And he says to her, you've been so very far away. And he just says, I'm so glad you came back to me.
And it's like, dude, like it's not even the point of the movie that like, oh, their marriage can get back together. Right. It ends in a place where it's like, this is a really nice ending, but this wasn't the point of the movie.
And yet it gets me like I was like weeping at that line. And the way that she just collapses into his arms at the end of this movie is like there is such a release. And there is such a, I don't know, man, what do you want to call it?
It's catharsis. It's catharsis. And it's an honoring of their commitment.
Yeah.Brad
You know that the reality is that the greatest tragedy of this film is what you said that she will carry this secret with her her whole life. Human beings were not meant to live in darkness. And whenever we keep things secret, whenever we keep things bottled up, it, it corrodes, it degrades our soul.
And I just, I think that this film shows both sides of it, that she's keeping the secret and it's tearing her apart. But in the midst of that, her husband comes over, holds her as she weeps. And whether or not he knows that she cheated on him or thought about cheating on him and leaving him, he accepts her for who she is.
And he offers her a community. He offers her what a marriage is supposed to be all about, which is unconditional love and support. And that, like, that is such a beautiful thing.
It's something that every single human needs. We need people to be witnesses to our lives in order for them to have meaning. And I just, I think that this movie just hits the nail on the freaking head at what it means to be a human in so many different ways.Bob
All right, man, we are in a really good place to press pause and drink this. I was a like forget, forget, hit and pause. Like, we pretty much just did it.
Yeah. And yet the funny thing is, in my notes, I go so much deeper than this. I'm like, OK, we've talked about the surface level of this movie.
Now let's talk about some more things under the surface. And so, you know, it might seem like we're done at this point. And I hope that like, I hope that our enthusiasm for this movie is coming through because I was really worried, Brad, that you wouldn't like this movie.
And you know how I am when I'm worried that you don't like a movie. I text you and tell you like, please don't watch it when you're busy. Please make sure that you can't you're not distracted.
Like, please give it a chance.Brad
You always you always put like a lot of disclaimers when I know you're nervous that I'm not going to like a movie. Like, well, it's a very quiet British film. So make sure, you know, you're in a quiet British kind of mood.
Like, all right, Bob, I'll make a cup of tea. It'll be all right.Bob
All right, man. Let's try this rich and rare reserve. What do you say?Brad
I already tried it, Bob. I'm excited to talk about it.Bob
All right. So today we are checking out rich and rare reserve. This is a Canadian whiskey that honestly, I just kind of paired up with this movie because it sounded like something that would go with brief encounter.
It sounded like something that was stately and would go with society. It's rich and rare. You know, we haven't done a Canadian whiskey in a while.
And I'm going to be real frank with you there. That is on purpose because whiskey is not usually that good.Brad
And here's the crazy thing, though. I feel like every single not distillery, but like all the places that are blend that are importing and blending whiskeys, they're all doing it with Canadian whiskies and they're all freaking amazing.Bob
Yeah, well, that's the thing is like there are some Canadian whiskeys, especially whiskeys that are distilled in Canada that are very, very good. But a lot of what we know as Canadian whiskey is kind of, you know, to use a very crappy pun, like bottom of the barrel type stuff here. So let's real quick, let's do a rundown, a reminder, a refresher on Canadian whiskey in order to be called Canadian whiskey.
It has to be distilled from grain, from cereal, and it has to be aged in wood barrels for three years. Now, it doesn't have to be distilled in Canada and it doesn't have to be aged in barrels that are first fill or fresh virgin barrels. So most Canadian whiskey is imported and aged in used barrels.
So like that's kind of why Canadian whiskey is always very light in color, why it doesn't seem to have a lot of flavor, why sometimes it kind of seems harsh is because it's just not really maturing to the level of something like, you know, a well-aged bourbon. There are typically like two ways that Canadian whiskey is blended because it's almost all blended and today's whiskey is no exception. So what you get is what they call base whiskies, which is whiskey that's actually distilled in Canada at some of their larger distilleries there.
And then that's usually put in used barrels and then they have what's called like flavoring whiskeys, which are brought in and they actually usually age those in new barrels and then they blend them together. And it's because it kind of gives you like a nice middle ground, like aging new stuff in used barrels and, you know, older stuff in new barrels. I just wish that they would flip that process.
It just seems like they could get so much more flavor taking the exact opposite approach. But, hey, I don't know, man, they've been doing it for a long time in Canada. This is what we're drinking today is kind of on par with like Crown Royal, except way cheaper.
It's blended. I have no idea what goes into it a little more. It's a little more misty, more Canadian, misty 80 proof.
I don't know what's in it. It's aged for three years. That's about all we know.
So Brad, let's dive in here because this is real cheap and I got us two little 50 ml bottles to sample. They were like a dollar a piece. They both came in plastic.
And when I pour this out, man, I'm trying this live on air. You've had it already. This smells like plastic.
It smells like someone is burning a plastic jug in a bonfire when they shouldn't be doing that. And that's kind of what I'm getting here.Brad
You know, it's a very thin nose. I had a friend come over and he was he was like arrived right as I was finishing writing my review for this. And I gave him the glass and I was like, hey, just give me your nosing notes on this.
And he took it for about five minutes and tried to come up with anything. And he's like, you know, it's a high ethanol nose. And I was like, yeah, that's a good note because I don't have any other notes on the nose.Bob
No, it smells like ethanol and plastic.Brad
That's pretty much all I get here. Yep. Sitting, I literally sat with it for probably 10 to 15 minutes trying to get any nosing notes.
There's like a tiny bit of generic sweetness. You might call it caramel that comes through. You might.
You might. It's caramel adjacent. Honestly, like for how little there is on the nose, it's not actively bad the way that some noses are.
So I would rather take nothing over actively bad. So, you know, I give it a four and a half on the nose. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a three.
This is actively bad.Bob
This is like the only notes here are alcohol. It smells like, you know, if you opened up a thing of rubbing alcohol and then dumped all the actual alcohol out of it and just breathed in the inside of that plastic little squirt bottle, it comes in. It just smells like unaged alcohol.
And that's the most ruthless note you've ever given. I just worry about what chemicals are going into our bodies here. Like, it just seems like this has been like the BPA in this crappy plastic bottle has just been leeching into this for two years while it sat on our shelves.Brad
Well, Bob, I've I'm already I'm in. I've already drank it. You can hold off and just skip it if you want to.Bob
Uh, I'm I'm tasting it now. Give us your tasting notes real quick.Brad
Uh, honestly, that little bit of hints of caramel adjacent kind of came through on the flavor. There's a little bit of vanilla. The most interesting thing I could say about it is that there was like a tiny hint of nuttiness, almost like a little bit of a peanut.
It's OK. It's not bad on the taste. I'll give it a six out of ten on the taste.
Like, it's not actively bad. There's a few hints of things that could be good. So, yeah, we'll just stick there.Bob
OK, I will say this. This is not what I would call like a very good whiskey. But when you take the nose as the baseline, the flavor is shockingly good.
Yeah. OK, so tip of my tongue is just water like there's no initial burn at all. And on the mid palette, it starts to develop some kind of almost like like barley type notes for me.
And you get a little bit of vanilla sweetness that you're talking about on the back end. The alcohol comes in and it turned into lots of melon for me. I got a lot of like cantaloupe on this.
And it kind of reminds me of like if you poured yourself a cheap Irish whiskey and put an ice cube in it and then let the ice cube melt all the way, forgot that it sat out on the table overnight and then drank it all lukewarm the next day. That's like what this is like. It just feels very diluted.
And even the palette of it feels diluted. But it's not bad. Like I'm going to give it a seven out of ten on the taste because it's so pleasantly surprising compared to that nose.Brad
Yeah, that's that's I was trying to say. Like it's not bad. And that's that's good.
Uh, as I got into the finish, it definitely soured as it went, as I would expect of a cheap whiskey. It finishes with a few peppery notes, but nothing really very nice. I disliked the finish a lot and gave it a four out of ten.Bob
Yeah, I don't think it's that quite that bad. It does turn peppery, a little bit oaky and kind of like some some greenness or some young vegetal notes, almost a little bit bitter. And so I'm going to give it a five and a half on the finish.
But again, like coming from the nose, the taste and the finish are like a like worlds different for me. So that brings us to balance. And this is where things get interesting because I don't think this is a well-balanced whiskey.
I actually think that I might enjoy this whiskey more than the way that we scored out would indicate. But this is only like a five out of ten on balance.Brad
Yeah, I give it a five as as well. And I don't think there's really anything else to say there. It's very thin throughout and doesn't have a very even experience.
So five out of ten. Let's get on to value. Bob, this bad boy in the state of Ohio, the wonderful, beautiful state of Ohio will cost you for a fifth of this nine dollars and forty nine cents.Bob
Yeah, well, now it is important to know that this is owned by the Sazerac company. They own the label rich and rare. And there is there's two tiers of rich and rare.
There's rich and rare. And then there's rich and rare reserve. So we got that.
We got the high end stuff here, Brad, and it's still nine dollars a fifth. So like I think regular rich and rare is six something for a fifth. So here's the thing.
When it comes to scoring this out, you cannot get many whiskeys for less than ten dollars, especially whiskeys that actually meet the threshold of being 80 proof. I guess the best comparison for this, you know, you can get like benchmark for twelve dollars or something in the world of bourbon. But this isn't like that.
This is not that's not single digits, Bob. Yeah, this is much more similar to I guess I'll say like this. Compare this to Cutty Sark, which we had a couple months ago.
Cutty Sark is better than this, and this feels like watered down Cutty Sark. And so it's hard to recommend this over something like a Cutty Sark, because even as a mixer, I don't know if this is. Like if this stands out enough or if it would just get swallowed up by everything else in your drink.Brad
Yeah, it wouldn't it wouldn't stand up, if anything. It would remind me of using like vodka as a mixer where you're like, oh, I know that there's alcohol in there, but the mixers is the only thing I taste.Bob
Yeah, do you remember when we drank that Seagram seven that had like it was part neutral grain spirits that just tasted like vodka, like whiskey flavored vodka? This is better than that. This tastes like whiskey.
And the more that I drink it, like I'm on my third or fourth sip of this now. It's very pleasantly sweet up front in a way that it wasn't initially. If you can get past that nose, this is not awful.
It's just not really good either. And even at a $10 price point, I think there's a couple other options you could choose. So I'm going to give it a five out of 10 on value.Brad
Oh, honestly, I gave it a seven out of 10 on value. Like for a sub $10 whiskey, it's really not too bad. And I guess I feel like I was brutally honest enough about the nose and finish and balance to, to just say, yeah, like, I think this is a decent value.
And I would recommend it just on the fact that if you don't have $10 to spend on whiskey, then I think you have other issues that you should focus on. I get, I get that.Bob
But also then you have to ask the question of like, who's this for, right? Because if you're making a $10 whiskey, you're not making a great whiskey, right? So you're probably just like, hey, this is for someone who's either just trying whiskey for the first time or it's a mixer.
And I don't know if I'd recommend, maybe I'd recommend this to somebody trying whiskey for the first time because it's really inoffensive and, and pretty generically sweet. I wouldn't recommend it as a mixer. So like one of its two intended uses, I think it kind of fails at before we reveal our final scores, Brad, like, let's just say it like this.
Would you recommend this whiskey to any particular group of people? Like, is there any group of people that you can think of that you'd be like, oh, this would be good for people that are blank.Brad
Man, Bob, I am racking my brain. I really don't think of any particular group of people that I would want to recommend this to. Yeah, that's like part of me would part of me would want to drink it with some of my whiskey friends just to like get their thoughts on it, but not to just sit there and drink whiskey with them, right?
Like I would be like, hey, like I had to try this for the podcast. Try it with me. All right.
So what are you coming out to, man?Bob
I'm at a 26.5 out of 50. I'm at a 25.5 out of 50. So we're coming out to a 26 out of 50 or just a 52 out of 100, which I'm pretty sure we just gave that exact same score to something like a couple weeks ago.
Am I wrong on that?Brad
No, we were very close. Man, what was it? I'm looking through.
Was it the Jameson cold brew?Bob
Yeah, maybe we just did last week, I think. OK, listen, I'm going to say this. This has never been part of my nosing or tasting notes before, you know, like I'm I got my face pressed up against my windscreen here on my microphone.
So my breath is just bouncing back into my nose. And after drinking this, my breath smells like when you when you cut open a pumpkin to make a jack-o'-lantern and you're like the inside of the guts of the pumpkin, like this whiskey has made my breath smell like pumpkin guts. So if that's your thing, run out and buy rich and rare reserve.
Get you some rich and rare reserve. Treat yourself. All right, man, let's get back into talking about a movie that is significantly better than this whiskey was Brief Encounter.
Let's get to it.Brad
All right, everybody, that was rich and rare reserve, the highest and rich and rare whiskey we will ever drink on this podcast.Bob
Yeah, I don't know if we're ever going to. Listen, if you see a stoop to the level of rich and rare. Like, please subscribe to the Patriot because we are in dire straits.
Oh, man, well, it is time for two facts and a falsehood. Two facts and a falsehood where Brad tries to stump me by presenting three items as fact, one of which is a complete fabrication that Brad made up. Now, in an ideal world, we would be better at keeping score.
I think that I am still above 500 on the season, but at this point of the year, it's kind of just vibes, you know, like it feels like I'm doing OK. And so I'm just going to like, I'm going to put that into the universe. You know, I'm going to say, hey, you're like like nine and eight.
Yeah, we'll say that. Yeah. All right, Brad, let's see if I can keep this incredible streak going with your two facts and a falsehood.Brad
All righty. Fact number one, Sir Anthony Havelock Allen was convinced that the only place this movie would do well was France, but the major French distributor turned it down. It only changed its mind when the movie won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
Fact number two, Lean was so interested in the clock at the train station that he had a dummy face built for it so that it could be controlled as well as be more easily read from a distance.Bob
Oh, interesting.Brad
Fact number three, Celia Johnson was initially extremely nervous around the cast and crew and asked for the first week of production if she could have a cup of her favorite tea to calm her nerves before her scenes.Bob
Huh, interesting. I know that number three, at least parts of it are true. Like she was very nervous about performing in this movie.
And you said that because of that, she requested the tea be made for her. Yeah, her favorite tea. OK.
Number one sounds interesting because I know that this movie was in competition at the very first ever Cannes Film Festival. So like, which is really cool. Just a cool fact to learn.
Um, and so I guess just based on those two things, I guess I'm going to say number two is the falsehood unless there's like some little detail that I missed in one or three. But I'm going to say two is the falsehood. Number two is not the falsehood.
Oh my gosh, Brad. Dude, you kind of give me a softball here. Like just, oh, you got a lot of the next couple of weeks.
I feel like I feel like the vibes are turning. Vibes are very bad right now.Brad
Oh, man. Yes, it did win the grand prize. However, Celia Johnson never asked for her favorite tea to be made before her scenes.
Cool. So yeah. But yeah, David Lean was vastly interested in the clock at the train station to the point where like it never was even mentioned in the script that there was like this clock at the train station, but he like made it a prominent part of the scenery of the film.Bob
His vision of walking into that station and being like, I must shoot you talking to the clock like just you must be like a family guy. It's like a family guy scene. All right.
So speaking of that train station and moving very quickly away from the fact that I am probably below 500 at this point on the on the season. So this movie was filmed, you know, while the war is still going on and they the production kind of got moved out of main train stations in the London area to like a more remote train station where they kind of took over production, but they also weren't in harm's way and they weren't impeding the war effort. And I think, Brad, that I want to talk for a little bit about the fact that this movie is without really saying it set in the pre-war era and released during the war or at the very end of the war.
And what those two things really mean for this movie, because I think that there's a lot to glean from the historical context here, and we don't really get a chance too often to talk about reading the historical context into the text of a movie. And this is the kind of stuff that like me and you, the Bible and theology majors in us, like I get very giddy about this because it's pretty rare to get a movie that comes across our plate where the historical context is as like as rich and adds so much to the story as a movie like this. So why is it important that this movie is set in the pre-war era?
You know, so the play is written in the mid 1930s. We can kind of estimate that this is set like sometime in the late 1930s. But again, they never really say it.
But when you start to think about it for a minute, it I mean, it has to be set before the war because, you know, people have pointed out things like people are just buying bars of chocolate and there's no chocolate rationing and like all of the men are still at home and not fighting overseas. And like it's very obviously not during wartime. And I think that it's important that this is set before the war, but released during it because you definitely couldn't have made this movie 10 years prior.
Like, I don't know if this movie gets released 10 years earlier just based on the subject matter alone. Like the fact that this is a movie that is fundamentally about an affair is something that certainly wouldn't have flown in the US with like the Hays Code coming into play. But even in Britain, like I just don't know if British sensibilities were ready for this movie 10 years earlier.
And I think that, you know, I've been reading this really great breakdown of women in British film by the professor. Her name is Anatonia Lant, and I got her book from the library just to read about this movie because she goes into like such detail about women in film in Britain in the war years. And there's a whole chapter about brief encounter.
And one of her main arguments is that like setting this movie in the past during the war allows for this kind of like detachment from the audience where they can look at this movie that is about people who are not rich, but certainly of some means who are doing bad things. And yet they're able to kind of sympathize with them in a way that they wouldn't have been if A, it had been set during the war or B, if it had come out before the war. So I think there's just a really there's a lot of really interesting things going on here.
And I've got obviously, if you know me, I have much more to say, but I want to stop here and I want to hear your initial thoughts on this.Brad
Well, I was going to say, why do you think it is that? The war had like, what do you think the war had changed about the British public that they were OK with hearing a story about an affair?Bob
That's a great question, and I will not take credit for this, and I will point back to that book I was reading, but she kind of goes in on this. She says, like, you know, during the war, British propaganda was all about unifying the British people, which had been so divided for so long among class lines where now it was like people of all classes were bound together by the fact that like we are all British and we were all sharing this experience together. And so you could go to the movies as like a poor person, a commoner, right?
And watch this movie where, you know, whether this woman and this doctor are richer than you or poorer than you, you now identify with them as like sharing in this British experience in a way that like in the 1930s, you would look at that woman and if you were richer than her, you would be dismissive of like this is this is the type of trash that exists in Britain. And if you were poorer than her, you'd be like, this is a movie about rich people dealing with these, you know, whims of flights of fancy that us commoners never have to worry about. And yet, like in the context this was released in, I think people were more receptive to it because they could see themselves in it in a way they couldn't before.Brad
Yeah, well, and that comes back to what we have said from the very start of this episode that this movie is incredibly intimate and not just with its subject matter, but it feels intimate to anyone who watches it that it could be real for them. And yeah, I wonder if I think that she probably has a point in saying that they might have been dismissive of the movie earlier. But because of all that propaganda, like, yeah, sure, this could be any British citizen struggling with this situation.Bob
Well, and then you get to the part that it's released during the war. And I mean, think about all of the World War Two movies you've seen and the destruction that happened in Europe. And obviously, Britain is a little bit removed from what's happening on the continent.
But you've got the bombing of Britain going on for however long, right? And the men are all at war. And obviously, like when war is happening, it is just it's never talked about, but it's always assumed that like the men are off fighting and then they go to a town in France somewhere and they all, you know, get their rocks off with a prostitute or some desperate townsperson.
And the women are at home and the men that remain at home, they're all cheating with the women because like everyone's doing what they have to do to survive during wartime. And then, you know, when we come back together at the end of the war, we're never going to talk about this again. But it's obvious like infidelity is happening in Britain in a way that it wasn't before.
And it's not to say that it's accepted, but it's like it's just happening. And this is part of life right now because life is really fucked up because it's World War Two, right? So like, yeah.
And, you know, Lance in this book, she goes into a lot of detail talking about how even during this time, the idea of like what it means to be a responsible housewife and mother is changing in Britain, similarly to how it was changing in America. Like women are coming out of the home and having to work and having to do things that they weren't expected to do before. And it got to the point with the infidelity and women being out in, you know, out of the home more than they were that like illegitimate children in Britain doubled between 1940 and 1945.
So like this is something that a lot of people are sitting in the theater and able to empathize with what's going on on screen because a lot of these people are harboring their own secrets and they've done things that they probably regret. But that like at the end of the day, I don't want to judge anybody for because I've never been in a situation like that. You know what I mean?
Like it's World War Two. Like, yeah. And I think that all of those layers added on to this movie really help you to understand why it was a success in Britain and why it's so beloved because it speaks to these secrets and it speaks to these truths that a lot of people had at the time.
And it speaks to how the Brits will just never talk about it.Brad
Oh, man. I mean, when I was doing my research for two facts and a falsehood, one of the little bits of trivia I stumbled upon was that lean was taking a train somewhere in Britain and a man came up to him and like almost accosted him and was like, why did you make that movie? Because now I realize that if that woman could think about cheating on her husband, my wife could think about cheating on me.
And he was like angry with lean for making this movie and bringing this awareness to his soul. And I think it just speaks to what we're talking about, that this movie, it is sincere and it feels like one of the most honest human experiences we've ever watched on this podcast.Bob
And again, it treats everybody like an adult. And it doesn't assume that because people are prone to make bad decisions that they are fundamentally bad people. And I think that that is like a huge important distinction about this movie.
And again, getting back to the wartime thing, like there's a way of reading this movie where you read their relationship as a kind of a metaphor for Britain itself. Like these people's lives have been thrown into a period of disequilibrium, right? Of destabilization that they have been going through.
They're going through this thing that they don't really understand and it feels like a whirlwind and they kind of come to their senses and collect themselves and they keep calm and carry on. And then at the end of it, they try to return to a sense of normalcy. And that is exactly what the whole nation is going through at the end of World War Two.
And again, that's why I say that you can't really divorce this movie from the historical context. And I think that part of the sensitivity that Noel Coward and David Lean give these characters is a result of this shared lived experience that everyone in Britain has been going through. Man, this movie is so good, Bob.
I'm so freaking glad you liked it. I was so, so worried that you were going to be like, this was the most boring movie I've ever watched.Brad
Oh, no, dude, I really, really loved it. I'd be curious before we get into let's make it a double in our final scores. Is there is there anything else that you want to talk about the music, the cinematography, the lighting?
Like, because I feel like there's a lot going on here that we haven't even started to touch on.Bob
You know, one thing that I will say, and we're wrapping up our David Lean miniseries here is that for an for a director who chose subject matter that that on the surface always seemed like it could be very stuffy and like really stiff upper lip Britain kind of stuff. David Lean was radically modern about his approach to Britishness, but also like how he cut his movies together, watching Lawrence of Arabia and watching Bridge on the River Kwai. I was kind of shocked at how often there would be just like a smash cut to the next scene.
And there was one moment, I think in Bridge on the River Kwai, where it cuts to a scene where it's staring directly up at the sun. And then William Holden like staggers into view and you're looking at him from below. And it looked like a shot from like a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western.
And there was a couple shots like that in Lawrence of Arabia too. And obviously this movie is very different in terms of its rhythm and its pacing. But there's a couple moments in this movie where it will just like smash cut to a shot of a train ripping through this station.
And, you know, at the end of the movie, when she's contemplating suicide, it pushes in and it turns into this like Dutch angle. And so he's just always doing interesting things with the editing and the camera movements in a way that you might not expect if you were just reading like the synopsis of this movie on IMDb.Brad
Yeah. I mean, that that Dutch angle that he's at the end feels so incredibly out of place for, you know, for the cinematography of the rest of the film. And yet I think it might be one of the best uses of a Dutch angle that we have ever seen on this podcast, because it truly communicates the horror and the the darkness of the moment.
And the how dissonant it is with the rest of her life that she would consider committing suicide. Like like it truly is a dissonant thought for her. And he uses the camera to communicate that.
And you feel the eeriness and the grossness of the moment as the camera slowly zooms in and and like turns to the right. I that like was haunting to me. And it was just a three second Dutch angle.
And I was just like broken by it.Bob
All right. So let's get into let's make it a double, because we're we're right about at the hour mark, I think now. And this movie to its, you know, eternal credit is an hour and twenty six minutes long, which is just chef's kiss, you know, for the yeah, the sub 90 minute movie.
Man, come on. All right. So we're getting to the point where our podcast episode could become a DVD commentary track.
So we need to wrap things up here. But let's make it a double, man. What would you pair this movie up with to make the perfect double feature?Brad
Honestly, I was thinking about two movies, the first of which being La La Land. Oh, interesting. But, you know, partially just because it's a story of two, you know, people who fall in love and then don't end up together.
Sure, sure. But I think I'm going to do a movie you mentioned earlier. I'm going to pair it with Marriage Story.Bob
Oh, nice.Brad
I think that La La Land is is the American version of of Brief Encounter, where it's prettier people doing prettier things. I think that Marriage Story is the it encapsulates the rawness and the lived in feeling of people going through a divorce in such a way that I think it just pairs super well with Brief Encounter. Even the way that the movie starts, that Marriage Story starts with the narration of the letters that they wrote for their counselor, like, has a very Brief Encounter esque feel to it.
So, yeah, I think I'm going to pair it with Marriage Story.Bob
I love that, man. All right. So for mine, I was thinking about this scene where they get caught in his friend's flat and then they cut to a shot where she's outside and she's just like running through the streets.
And it reminded me. And you thought of singing in the rain. It reminded me of the very.
That's a great pairing, Bob. It reminded me of the very end of the movie The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, where she is like running through. She leaves Fred McMurray and she's running through the street to get to Jack Lemmon's house.
And I think there's a lot of that, like, I'd say melancholy is in The Apartment. But ultimately, I don't think I'm going to choose The Apartment. I'm going to choose a movie that is just as much about a woman who explicitly at one point in the movie talks about how women keep things locked up in their heart.
And it's a movie where a woman sits down and has a confessional. And at one point, she even says that she's been holding on to the secret of this brief encounter for 84 years. And that movie is James Cameron's Titanic.
Oh, look at you go. And that movie is very different from Brief Encounter because the love story ends up taking a backseat to the disaster element of it all. And this is like, what if that story played out in everyday life and nothing disastrous happened?
So it's like two sides of the same coin in a lot of ways. But yeah, I love me some Titanic. I'm always happy to talk about it.
I think I'd pair this up with Titanic.Brad
Well, did you know that The Apartment only happened because of this movie? Did it really? Yeah, and man, I'm trying to I'm literally looking through the IMDb.
I read it while I was doing research for two facts and a falsehood. According to several Billy Wilder biographies, the scene in the movie where where Alec Harvey tries to use a friend's apartment in order to be alone with Laura inspired him to write The Apartment.Bob
Oh, interesting. You know, I've heard this story before because he he walks away and wonders, like, what's it like for the poor guy that has to get into the bed when it's still warm? Like, oh, my gosh, that's horrible.
Yeah. Oh, I love that. All right.
So maybe we should pair it up with The Apartment. It sounds like they were they were made for each other. Yeah, from from each other at the very least.
All right, man. What score would you give this movie out of 10? I'm really anxious to hear what your score would be.Brad
I am. I'm really trying to think of why I shouldn't give it a 10. Me too.
Like, is this a 10?Bob
I think it's a 10, Bob. It doesn't. So I'll say this.
It doesn't feel like a perfect movie. No, but it's one of those movies. And I'm telling you, dude, you will think about this movie or like some some emotion, some connection that you had with this movie, like every week for the next year, because it's been happening with me.
And like I said, I gave it an eight when I first watched it. But no movie has had this sort of like haunting effect on me since the last time you and I watched Vertigo.Brad
Hmm. Yeah, dude. And I think that's the thing.
Yeah, go ahead. I think that with Vertigo and with Brief Encounter, this is like capital C cinema that I'm pretty sure like 80 percent of the population could watch and enjoy. Yeah.
And so I'm like, I think it's a 10 out of 10, Bob.Bob
Let's do it, man. I'm going to give it a 10. You're going to give it a 10.
Which means that this is the highest ranked of our three David Lean films. I could not be happier. This this turned out better than I ever expected.
Just stellar. Stellar movie. All right, show old chap.
Well, guess what time it is, Brad? It's time for us to turn the page from David Lean to James Cameron. Oh.
And not only are we turning the page to James Cameron, but this Friday, Avatar 2 comes out and I'm going to go see it. Like, I'm very excited to see this movie because I need to verify whether Avatar 1 was any good. And that means that next.
It wasn't. Next Monday, our movie for the week is Avatar. So we're going from Brief Encounter to the Na'vi.
The quietest movie we've ever seen to one of the loudest movies we've ever seen. I'm really, really excited to do James Cameron because I feel like you have not yet come to terms with the fact that he is like a master filmmaker. I think you're still still on edge with him, and I don't understand why.
Well, it's because Avatar is not a good movie. Well, next week, in any case, we will be reviewing Avatar 1 and kicking off four movies with James Cameron. So we will see you for that next Monday.
But until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G. And we'll see you next time.Brad
A suburban. A suburban woman won my ass. You missed it, right?
Drinking too much. A suburban woman in Britain is on a rail train, and she now. Fuck me, dude.
You really, really screwed yourself with that prediction. I did.
