Brooklyn is a delicate, sensitive film, a gentle ode to expats, suffused with 50s nostalgia and working girl chic. Nick Hornby’s adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s eponymous novel, directed by John Crowley, eschews grand drama in favor of exploring the smaller stories of the heart. Saoirse Ronan shines as Eilis (pronounced Aylish) Lacey, who leaves behind her widowed mother and older sister Rose in Enniscorthy, Ireland, to seek out a new life in Brooklyn.
As immigrant stories go, this one is a best-case scenario: the wise and capable Rose has secured papers and ship passage through the kind Father Flood, who has found Eilis a room in a boarding house for young women and a job at Bartocci’s department store.
No dramatic adventures or dangerous encounters await Eilis in Brooklyn, she is just a quiet young woman living among strangers and longing for home. Yet, despite being surrounded by rather kind people, her overwhelming loneliness is sure to strike a chord with anyone who has ever made the decision to leave home and begin life anew in another country (in other words – many of us here in Israel). The simplicity of the plot allows Eilis’ inner conflicts to resonate all the more profoundly, exploring nuances of feeling.
Ronan, who some will remember fondly as Agatha the baker from Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, has the gift of conveying complex, and sometimes divergent feelings without uttering a word. The camera follows her closely, and one learns much about the character through gazing at her lovely, and very expressive features. At the boarding house run by the formidable and outspoken Madge Kehoe (Julie Walters is superb), the all-female bunch is city-smart, chatty, catty, and competitive. The tensions make the barbed dinner conversations so much fun: “No more talk about the Lord’s complexion at dinner.” Yet there’s also a nice sense of compassion and camaraderie, as when two of the crew take it upon themselves to show Eilis the ropes, whether it’s adding some color to her face, or teaching her how to eat pasta: “I’m gonna say splash any time I see problems.”
Retro fans and fashion mavens will enjoy the 50s costumes, I know I want every single dress Eilis wore in this film! Spring in New York is marvelous, and watching Eilis emerge from her winter cocoon of homesick gloom, is like feeling the sun come out again.
Some people might think Brooklyn is a love story, and in some ways it is. Emory Cohen is endearing as the unsophisticated, sweetly sincere Tony, while there’s considerably more to the freckled Domhnall Gleeson (the amiable time traveler from About Time) than meets the eye. However, Eilis aspires to make a better life for herself by acquiring an education and using the full capacity of her mind. Though quietly stated, this is a central theme throughout the film. The question at the core of this film is not so much which man to choose, it’s a question of what kind of life do you dare imagine for yourself, and what you might have to relinquish to make it happen.
Brooklyn
Directed by John Crowley; Screenplay: Nick Hornby, based on the novel by Colm Tóibín; Cinematography: Yves Belanger; Editor: Jake Roberts; Music: Michael Brook; Music supervisor: Kle Savidge; Production Designer: Francois Seguin; Costume Designer: Odile Dicks-Mireaux; Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Emory Cohen, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Jessica Pare, Eve Macklin, Brid Brennan, Fiona Glascott, Jane Brennan, Nora-Jane Noone, Jenn Murray, Eva Birthistle, Michael Zegen.
