Brief Encounter is a 1945 British romantic drama film directed by David Lean from a screenplay by Noël Coward, based on his 1936 one-act play Still Life. Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, and Joyce Carey, it follows a passionate extramarital affair in England shortly before World War II. The protagonist is Laura, a married woman with children, whose conventional life becomes increasingly complicated after a chance meeting at a railway station with a married stranger with whom she subsequently falls in love.