A Movie As Well-Made As The Passionate Friends Has Got A Friend In Me

To quote Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (which itself was quoting a passage from the book The Natural History of Nonsense): "We might be through with the past but the past ain't through with us." That's true under any circumstances but it's especially true in regards to the lead characters of The Passionate Friends, who are all entangled in how Mary (Ann Todd) is becoming heavily infatuated with a figure from her past much to the detriment of her present circumstances. Even when seemingly important people and events fade into the best, they can still manage to be impactful well into the present.

This figure Mary has found herself fixated on is Steven (Trevor Howard), a former lover from years ago that she happened to run into at a New Year's Eve party at the start of the 1940's. They share a brief interaction at this get-together before returning to their respective lives and spouses, with Mary specifically being comfortable with her husband Howard (Claude Rains). Mary and Steven carry on their interactions beyond that New Year's Eve party though and begin to rekindle their love for one another until Howard steps in to say how shocked (shocked!) he is that a romantic affair is transpiring in this establishment. That's the end of Steven and Mary's romantic reunion...until nine years later when they accidentally run into one another while on vacation. 

Now Mary (who is supposed to be on vacation with her husband, who will be arriving later in the week) is caught in the crossfire between the past and the present, a tale told in an interestingly unorthodox manner that has us starting in the present before skidding into the past. The events are told through Mary's perspective via voice-over that, in terms of how it's written, feels reminiscent of the syntax seen in noirs in that era. Through these sequences, one can gather a glimpse of how and why Mary & Steven would suddenly find themselves attracted to the notion of restarting a romance that's long ended.

The screenplay, credited to four individuals including the features director David Lean (H.G. Wells is also credited as a writer apparently for penning the 1913 novel on which this movie is based), admittedly, doesn't offer up a massive amount of personality for our lead characters, but what we do get is interesting enough and their interactions remains engaging due to the high level of chemistry between Ann Todd and Trevor Howard. Their behavior toward each other feels totally reminiscent of how actual former friends interact after years apart and the way they each subtly convey their characters struggling to figure out if they should embrace the past or simply go with the present is impressive.  

Claude Rains echoes his work in fellow 1940's classics Casablanca and Notorious by once again playing an antagonistic figure that comes between two romantic lead characters, though at least Howard is more akin to his Captain Renault character from Casablanca in that Howard gets to soften and show some dimensionality as the story goes along. There's a reason Rains got these roles with such frequency, he's just so good at being able to play these more intimidating parts well while also making sure he's able to differentiate these seemingly similar performances from one another. Rains doesn't just play the same character each time he's in a movie and that's very much true for his work in The Passionate Friends.

Though his final films would be grand sweeping epics, director David Lean proves to be a comfortable fit for small-scale character-centric dramas with his work on The Passionate Friends. He knows how to film conversations in a manner that avoid visual repetition, a trait that's especially notable in how he frames an intimate conversation between Mary & Steven as they reunite for the first time in years amidst a crowded New Year's Eve party. On a similar note, visual inventiveness emerges in the editing by Geoffrey Foot, specifically in how Mary's memories of her past romantic endeavors with Steven are cut against a car ride with Steven in the present. That's a memorable way to show how entranced Mary is with the past, an experience I can relate to since I'll always be fond of reminiscing over my memories of watching The Passionate Friends for the first time.