To commemorate David Lean’s centenary, the BFI has restored his first ten films, now touring the United States and Canada. The whole bunch play Cleveland in January and February, and I hope to catch as many as possible. Before this, I had only seen two Lean films (Brief Encounter, Summertime) and both years ago, so I’m jumping at the chance to explore his work in depth. At first I was disappointed to learn only his early films were on the schedule — I thought this would be my chance to follow through on advice to wait to see Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen (in honesty, it is the only way I would be interested in seeing the film). But after the teaser screening of The Passionate Friends, I can’t feel anything negative in anticipation of the works immediately preceding and following this unexpectedly great film.

When this film is considered at all, it is usually considered beside Brief Encounter. Indeed both are wildly romantic melodramas concerned with adultery, starring Trevor Howard, and featuring memorable scenes of public transportation. The films are superficially similar and perhaps (a rewatch will decide the matter, but now I’m rooting for Friends) Brief Encounter benefits on all counts in the comparison and is by right the remembered classic. But beyond these parallels, and despite my poor memory, my suspicion is that Passionate Friends is the darker, more mature, and more stirring of the two.

Judging by the first half hour, you would laugh to hear this film called dark. It begins in Mary’s romanticized memory — on her way to a holiday in Switzerland in advance of her husband, unaware that in the hotel’s adjoining room her first love is unpacking — recalling a New Year’s Eve nine years ago when she was still torn between them. On that night, when Mary and Steven dance and trade wishes for a happy new year, it is at first impossible to tell that they are no longer lovers. That dance leads to a brief and passionate affair — then, as in their youth, they exchange banal vows: “Will you always love me, Mary?” “Oh yes, Steven!”

But as in their first chance at happiness, Mary ultimately cannot — in her way, adamantly will not — give up what she has for his love. Her husband is a much older man, a successful banker. As they mutually understood it, they married for companionship and security, and it has suited them both. But Mary is a compelling character (amazingly vital and vulnerable in Ann Todd’s creation); she did not marry Howard Justin for his money alone. She married for her freedom. It is passionate love that takes her away from herself; becoming half of a joined soul is hateful to her, although she feels its pull in Steven’s arms; she will belong to herself, she protests vehemently. At times her actions are small and cowardly, but this is her act of bravery, enacted in a perversely roundabout way.

So the film becomes progressively darker and deeper as Mary and Steven’s paths continue to cross, that spark of something erotic and profound always between them. Twice (once truly, once mistakenly) Howard becomes aware of his wife’s infidelity, and those scenes unfold with masterful suspense and a fascinating exchange of power. Howard is not a simple man, either; he had his own reasons for marrying, and admits freely that he is afraid of losing her. Claude Rains, always so brilliant, precise, and powerful, slowly unguards his cold financier, and in his final scenes breaks your heart with his just-cracking longing and anger.

The film matures as life matures. The vapidity of the earlier dialogue takes on new significance set against the frank lust with which Mary reconsiders it, against the selfless and dispassionate choices of age, and against the terse professions of a different kind of love. It takes time to speak well of love — much more to love well.

The Passionate Friends makes much of different kinds of love, and of evolving kinds of love, making no prescriptions for them except for Mary herself. Until the right kind of love becomes clear to her, she is a divided woman, and like anyone so divided and feeling left without a choice, Mary descends into a very dark place indeed. Lean is a master of mood here, with pacing and shadowy photography turning her wandering through the London Underground into something legitimately terrifying — and I know it sounds like a facile image, but it must be recorded I started halfway out of my seat as she passed the “Way Out” sign, so perfectly aligned were the built tension, the score, her performance, the moment of my understanding &c. It is an exceptional sequence.

The resolution could not possibly be a more perfect realization of the film’s conceit and of the heroine’s needs — so perfectly right is it that, while far from the typical romantic release, I walked out of the theater on the kind of gratified high reserved for the basest “all is well — love conquers all” reflexes. Triumphant.