I am warming to it but it confuses me,help? SPOILERS SPOILERS.

I have previously posted here how much I hate this film.
But watching it after buying a David Lean boxed set I am warming to it a little,perhaps because I have recently watched a lot of British films from the 1940s which are nearly as well made.

So while admiring the skills of the film makers I still have questions about the film.

I read that it is set in 1938 but is this shown in the film? perhaps to someone watching it in 1945/1946 the fashion and the look of the film would shout 1938 to them?
Is the film saying pre war morality should be returned to?

Is the film set in the Home Counties? I know the station scenes were filmed in Lancashire but the town is Beaconsfield in Southern England.


This is a love story and I know millions of people love it but others say it is unrealistic.
After the war many people felt that the couple lacked passion and realism.

Watching it again I was surprised,I had forgotten,that she tells the husband she has had lunch and a visit to the cinema with a strange man.
They mention inviting him for dinner? the husband jokes it should be lunch,she says the husband can never make lunch,he sort of says exactly.

I don't get that scene,the man she met was not a family friend or relative but the husband doesn't suggest that he does not approve or suspect anything.