Brooklyn

Director: John Crowley
Starring: Saoirse Ronan,  Domhnall Gleeson,  Michael Zegen, Emory Cohen,  Mary O’Driscoll,  Julie Walters
Rating: 12A
Running time: 111 mins
Release Date: November 6th, 2015

The movie BROOKLYN is based on Colm Tóibín’s novel and has been adapted  for the big screen by Nick Hornby. For some it may be another version of THE IMMIGRANT, but it isn’t, BROOKLYN is more endearing and nicer.  

Saoirse Ronan plays the role of Eilis (and she does so superbly), a brave, young girl who takes the big step, or rather boat, to cross the ocean and leave her home and family behind in County Wexford where there are limited opportunities and work.

We are taken back to 1952, a whole world away of simply dropping missed loved ones an email, text or making a phone call when the pangs of loneliness and homesickness hit the heart. Instead, Eilis must say goodbye to her family and everything she’s ever known, quite possibly for the rest of her life as she embarks on this new adventure in search of a better life. 

Naturally, she has reservations about emigrating and saying goodbye to her former life as she prepares to move to New York, the start of a whole new adventure. Her move has been given a helping hand by her kindly priest, played by Jim Broadbent. He decides to put her skills with numbers and figures to good use and helps her with her new adventure in Brooklyn. He sets her up with a job in a department store, while she attends book-keeping classes at night.

Once in the bursting city of New York, she stays in a boarding house with a sharp-tongued aunty figure played superbly by Julie Walters and of course, there is a cackle of gossipy girls, but no one is truly malevolent. In traditional style, she attends church dances with boys, and that’s where she meets an Italian-American kid named Tony (Emory Cohen) and soon falls in love.

Brooklyn

There are some rather hilarious scenes which will certainly have the audience giggling; especially before Eilis goes to Tony’s parent’s house for a meal and ends up sitting at the dinner table with her boarding house ‘friends’ as she attempts to eat a pre-meal spaghetti, which turns into more of a how-to-eat-it lesson. It’s moments like these that take a subtle nod at cultural diversity without ramming it down a spectator’s neck. It shows superbly the variations in their ethnicity and cultural traditions without making it seem too stereotypical, which director John Crowley conveys very well on the screen. 

It may feel like the story has come to a happy conclusion: girl leaves home, girl is happy in her new life and girl-meets-boy love story commences, lets roll the fairytale credits… but all is not what it seems in this 111-minute feature, there is much more to discover.

As Eilis and Tony’s love affair ramps up, she finds herself having to return back to Ireland rather unexpectedly after receiving some devastating news. She declares her love to the man in her life and bids him fair well, leaving him with the dreaded feeling of the possibility she will be tempted by another whilst she is there after marrying in secret. Great instincts, Tony. And so we meet Jim Farrell (Domnhall Gleeson) the exact manly temptation she needs to return to her birth roots and the beautiful beaches she misses so much, which puts her in a rather difficult position. Which direction should she go?

Like any love triangle, it is a complicated mess, decisions must be made and hearts will be broken. Will she be brave and return back to her adventure in Brooklyn or remain stuck in her safety net of Ireland? 

The second act of the film lacks the tender, subtle comedy of the first half with the innocence of her life discoveries. We see her fight off the overwhelming urge to return home to her roots and the place she loves the most, which seems all the more tempting now that there is a possible new suitor who has won her attention. 

BROOKLYN delivers its story rather like a Victorian novel, as we are introduced to our protagonist; a young, naïve Irish woman torn between two lovers who are polar opposites of each other – a confident, Italian-American man who sweeps her off her feet and a quiet, kind red-headed man from her hometown. As in many old novels, she is forced to choose between courters, as well as a country.

Overall, BROOKLYN delivers on sentimentality, that helps the audience to look at life through rose-tinted glasses. Hornby has created a beautifully written screenplay bringing a sweet tale to life. 

Verdict

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