User Reviews

"I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all."

Whether Tennyson's paean to love would be quite how the star-crossed lovers in "The 7:39" a television film written by David Nicholls would see it I'm not quite sure. But I think they would. "No regrets" says Carl (David Morrissey) at the end – and Sally (Sheridan Smith) replies that he doesn't need to say that "because you don't mean it". But that is not said in any spirit of bitterness but more as a statement of the obvious – there is no future for either of them other than the one they choose. To be apart. And so there must be regrets – they have loved, and lost.

David Nicholls is the author of the novel and Film "One Day" which was clever and sad and which showed the author's exceptional feel for female characters and the female psyche. Emma in "One Day" has some similarities with Sally in "The 7:39" – bright, attractive and more vulnerable than she will admit. Sally is entering her 30s with a failed marriage behind her but in a permanent relationship with Ryan (Sean Maguire) who she is going to marry. He is a well-meaning but empty stud who has little self-doubt and even before Sally meets Carl you can see that she is having doubts about a Life of Ryan. So when she bumps into Carl on the 7:39 train, which they both use for their daily commute to London, perhaps she is, without really knowing it, ready for a bit of a fling. And maybe Carl is as well but for different reasons.

Carl (mid forties) is married to Maggie (Olivia Colman) and they are your archetypal middle-class suburban family. Two slightly surly teenage children. A nice house in a leafy Surrey town with a good train service to Waterloo. He is a sales manager at a London commercial property firm with a younger boss (Justin Salinger) – a menacing, ambitious, deeply unpleasant man who asserts his authority and manages in an uncaring way. Carl doesn't much like his job, despises his boss and probably thinks that he could have done better in life than be where he is. But the pay is good and he needs the money – his children are approaching University age and that has to be paid for. But its all a bit predictable and repetitive the family, the commuting, the work… we are firmly in mid-life-crisis territory here.

So when Sally meets Carl each of them has a hidden reason to explain why they might have a fling. But this is more than a fling and much more than just fun between the sheets. When on the discovery of the affair Maggie asks Carl if it is "love" he stutteringly he admits that it is. For Sally it is perhaps love by comparison with what she has with Ryan – a relationship which is rather over-graphically physical but in truth not much else. He's a bit of a dick – and not much more. She was perhaps seeking an excuse to walk away from Ryan – Carl has no reason to want to walk away from Maggie and his children, but love makes him do it.

This is a feature film length story and indeed could easily haver been cut as one whole rather than two one hour parts. It is tightly directed with some good location shooting on the South Bank and across the river in and around Aldwych. There is an authenticity about the story which the locations enhance but which is underpinned by the truly outstanding performances by the three principals. Morrissey is utterly convincing as the man with the crisis. Olivia Colman quite brilliant as the betrayed wife. Her controlled fury when she finds out about the affair is exceptional acting by this actress at the top of her form. And Sheridan Smith can do more with a gentle glance and a silent smile than many actresses with half a page of dialogue! Her attractiveness is not that of a plastic femme fatale and she is much more than the pretty girl next door. She is a mature woman, who has lived rather more than her years would suggest – she has a good job that she is proficient at and is in control of her life. Until Carl comes along anyway. But even though she is rather swept away by Carl she is still in control and she knows her assets. When she dresses up for the dinner on the evening when the affair gets properly underway she looks divine. If the relationship doesn't develop it won't be for want of her trying ! Later she knows exactly what she is doing when she dresses is tight jeans for the day out the lovers have together sightseeing!

"One Day" was a devastatingly sad story and in a way "The 7:39" is as well. Let's hope that David Nicholls can find a way towards a happy ending soon! That said does the love being lost in the story really make it unhappy? At the end (two years on) we see Carl returned to his family and Sally with a baby and new man looking cheerful. But Carl's smile as he spots this from a distance (and gets a wave of recognition from Sally) suggests that there were some "might have beens" that he regrets.

I posted the below on the boards, but it reads more like a review so here it is:

I agree with Jenny and Steph, I've actually signed up to these forums just to comment on the 7.39. I'm a 31 year old manchild who rarely watches any kind of Drama and would usually at this time be playing a computer game, but after seeing Part 1 day before yesterday I had to watch part 2 on iPlayer, the interactions were intense!

While I also agree with the OP that some of the situations were a bit contrived, I didn't feel any of the story 'vehicles' were egregiously out of place or overly convenient for the story being told in the format presented.

With the chemistry, the initial 'lust' and 'before the act' did not seem to come through, although I like to think of it as 2 people nervously 'playing' with the idea of it and then taking the plunge much to their own surprise rather than a premeditated slow-burn; it was better done, as a tantalising game of cat and mouse, that and the fear that either Sally or Carl had 'read' things incorrectly and the whole testing the water sentiment, it would perhaps be that the chemistry was purposefully muted to show a more realistic outward picture of fear, excitement, almost taboo thought-crime, where all the lust and mental imagery was inside the characters heads before the 'release' of their first time together; showing the same kind of emotions and interactions as I am sure some of us would have felt and acted as young school kids approaching their first girlfriend or boyfriend, the whole angle of being young and lost and in new territory, as both Carl and Sally were within the idea that blossomed into the act of adultery.

I thought Carl was a bit forward with the 'I think we need to acknowledge what is going on here' line when there didn't seem much more than shared flirting, but can fully accept it when thinking of how it would look to us as the voyeur viewer.

The Chemistry 'showed' for the first time after they had done the deed, and only seemed to deepen with each meeting. The familiar tenderness of 'pillow talk' and opening up to each other emotionally AFTER opening up physically, I thought the chemistry was fantastic and the time they spent together, touching, call me soft but there was moisture forming at the corners of my eyes throughout that, from the pillow talk to the standing in the rain, hairs on the back of my neck standing up, and personally, some familiar territory.

It seemed to fall away as you would expect as Carl's life began falling apart, it probably makes me a bad person, but I would've preferred that they ran off and lived in the seaside cottage together, giving Sally the change she wanted without the extremity of Australia and Carl the feeling of love he wanted. Throwing off the shackles of having too much to lose and responsibility. I thought the scene where they were both lying in the bed in the cottage played a fantastic parallel to Carl's life at home with Maggie, and the future would lead to the same situation should they have run off together, the certain sad inevitability of taking each other for granted and the way relationships change phases over time, for such a short scene it conveyed that amazingly well.

There was a problem with Olivia Coleman's character... she was not given enough dialogue or air time, I'm no particular fan of her's but I thought she was brilliantly cast, I suppose the sparseness of 'family dialogue' showed the rut or familiarity those that have been in any kind of long, staid relationship will find familiar, and did depict well a perfectly good family life otherwise.

I thought Ryan was quite a one-dimensional character, made out to be the monster and some kind of idiot neurotic tool that reminded me too much of the character 'Christian' from Eastenders. I thought he could have used a bit more softening to make him seem like someone that an intelligent, sharp, beautiful woman (who was exemplified by Sheridan Smith who has gone a LOOONG way from 'A pint of a lager and 2 packets of crisps' fame and also the last film I saw at the cinema in a long time... The Harry Hill Movie... which was actually bad despite being a Harry Hill fan), would actually even consider husband material.

Sorry about the wall of text, but I felt compelled, the reason why I think the 7.39 is so great, despite being a well-worn story, is that it actually reminded me of what it was like to be in love, to be out of control, to have my brain swirl around in the intoxicating dizziness of losing control and not caring, it reminded me of past break-ups and the feeling of guilt of the time we spent together being wasted for her. I felt bliss, sadness, empathy, sympathy, guilt, fear, and being lost, all from watching a BBC 2 part drama. It's absolutely brilliant, and I want to see more.

Just how far have we come in the 60 - odd years since dear Trevor and Celia wanted to do it but didn't?There's certainly very little holding back Miss S.Smith and Mr D.Morrisey from tumbling into bed together in comparatively short order.He is married,she "in a relationship" as the appalling modern term has it,but neither is prepared to step back from the brink although they cannot truly imagine that their escalating affair will go undetected. It truly is a case of "All for love - or The World well lost"for them at least until they take a reality check in a remote seaside cottage and then decide their affair is too hot not to cool down - as Mr Cole Porter had it. "The 7.39" marks the progress from dislike to mild flirtation to full - on intoxication courtesy of Network Rail and at first it seems like it is all good amusing banter,then shared coffee,then,well,you can fill in the rest. Ms Smith's LIL is a possessive gym - bunny with all his brains in his trousers while Mr Morrisey is married to the sublime Miss O.Coleman and has two smart and well -adjusted teenage children(how rare for a TV family). One might think that of the two he had the most to lose,but it is he who does most of the pushing. When their secret comes out Miss Coleman gives him a searing flea in his ear and sends him on his way. All this is complicated by the fact that Miss Smith finds she is pregnant,she assures Mr Morrisey by her LIL. Miss Coleman forgives her erring husband and he is back in the bosom of his family,presumably sadder but wiser. In the last scene we see that Ms Smith,too,has moved on. Absolutely nothing new,nothing edgy,gritty or urban occurs during "The 7.39"but it is well - made,superbly acted and a slice of early 21st century social comment as much as its predecessor was of the early post - war years.

Cheating husband + cheating fiance = happy romance . performance is good , but its unrealistic plot. because the movie gave a HAPPY ENDING, because cheating is ok for being happy n good relationship ?. yeh , that doesnt work in reality.

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the husband loves the other woman more and still with wife n kids m happy life? . thats some weird thing .. broken marriage

The film's content is nothing new; Man and woman fall in love and start a relationship, despite the fact that they are in binding relationships from before. This film reminds us of the movie Falling in love from the 80's, with Robert DiNiro and Meryl Streep. It does not have the most groundbreaking action. Yet it is very well depicted. First and foremost, the characters are credible. The film tells the story about two honest hardworking people and how the get involved in infidelity and lies when they gradually fall in love. It is also good when it portrays how people can come in such situations and how complex it eventually becomes. What happens next? Where are they going now? The film also takes up the wounded sides of lies and infidelity, and the suffering third party gets a prominent depiction in the film. Absolutely a good drama.

It's no surprise that just about everyone, in reviewing this TV mini-series, draws the very obvious parallel to "Brief Encounter". BE is still a wonderful movie but, by today's standards, it does look quite dated and, frankly, a little bit silly with its wistful looks and its secretive suggestion of illicit sex going nowhere. No surprise also therefore that a decision was made to make an updated version of that classic with, in many ways, its far more believable (but in many ways flawed) lead characters. This mini-series is wonderful and only the end lets it down.

Dare I suggest that there's barely a married man alive at any time who didn't feel precisely the way Carl felt about Sally. It's a story as old as marriage itself. The romance was tender and very believable, the affair was sweet and the love was obviously genuine. SO, WHY THEN, is it never possible, in a tale such as this one, for the two characters who share the sweet romance and the love they feel to share a life together as Carl and Sally probably should have done? The final scenes with Carl back with his family and Sally in a relationship with someone other than the child's father were really not quite believable and, for me at least, were a decided let-down.

It's a very fine mini-series but it is flawed only in the ending of the story it tells. It's rewarding for most of its length but, for me, a slight disappointment in the conclusion.

JMV