Lean's sad, buttoned-up account of unconsummated love is about all of us and our cautious natures. It's not that the English don't want true love or self-knowledge. Rather unlike our European cousins, we will not easily give up the real for the dream. We remain skeptical about throwing away a concrete asset like Fred in favor of "the faery power of unreflecting love," no matter how much Keats may recommend it. Laura, a Midlands mother of two, is certainly not a fairy by temperament, despite her pixie face. She will not give up the reality of Fred for her love of Alec. Alec, gentleman that he is, quite agrees. An Italian (or indeed, the modern English viewer of the film) will diagnose Laura and Alec as morbidly repressed. The film offers a different hypothesis: that the possibility of two people's pleasure cannot override the certainty of other people's pain. Primum non nocere is the principle upon which the film operates. As a national motto we could do a lot worse.