Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

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

A British television movie, splits into two parts of each 60 minutes long. From the writer of 'One Day' who once again wrote a beautiful screenplay. Portrayal of the romantic drama from the perspective of the middle-aged people. Indeed, specially made movie for them, it explores the midlife crises in the marriage and spiritless mechanical life that follows the day after the day. Now, you guys have to switch your mind to google map mode: The story told between the two points of life's map, one is where the home and the family is, dot, and the other one is an office and the job, dot. To describe it mathematically, between these points there comes a line which is practically a boring journey.The majority won't enjoy leaving home for the work, especially on the Monday morning. The bad day begins with shouting for someone who come across your car front, or fight for a seat in the train and bus. The same way this story appear to have a life where two odd people meet. Carl married with two children and Sally engaged to marry soon. So the days follow everything changes and the journey turns more cheerful than ever. Their little friendship ends in flirtation, but well realising they won't accept the truth. Can they remain good friends, or ready to face the consequences and how their families affect by this is the rest of the riddle.It just seems... Futile. After seeing the first quarter of the movie, it reminded me James Siegel's 'Derailed'. I thought I was an inch closer to predict the second part, but the story was smartly moved to the other way. An interesting story development followed further going towards the end of the first half. In the second part, everything slowdowns, but still gripping because it was a crucial stage in the storytelling to solve the puzzle that created in the earlier. Not an over melodramatic or the sexual exploration, but the point is very clear to give us a fair bit amount of everything with the realistic outlook as much possible.With the sense of awareness of our responsibility in life we know that cheating in a marriage is morally wrong, but it depends what type of life we're leading. There's nothing specialty in this film compared to other movies of the same theme, but the portrayal makes the poetic rendering. Maybe the actors were too good with the excellent chemistry. Yep, you can't just keep silent, these guys filled the souls to their characters, certainly appreciation follows after a watch. While a watch, all my thinking was on the end part, how it's going to happen. A simple and usual, but definitely a very good solution, highly satisfying, makes the overall movie is the best piece of carving. Simply wondered how this movie can't fit to be a silver- screen product.8/10

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.

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.