BROOKLYNDirector: John Crowley
Genre: Period Drama
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent
Distributed by: Fox Searchlight Pictures, TSG Entertainment
Release Date: November 6, 2015
My Rating: 9/10
The Oscars are exactly one month away, so here is my review on the fourth film nominated for Best Picture this year that I've had the pleasure to see so far, one which left me very satisfied.
Irish director John Crowley (Intermission, Boy A, Closed Circuit) brings to the screen an adaptation of Colm Toibin's novel of the same name, while author Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy) pens the screenplay.
Oscar Nominee Saoirse (pronounced 'ser-shuh,' like 'inertia') Ronan (Atonement, Hanna, The Host) stars as Eilis (Pronounced 'Ay-lish') Lacey, a young girl from a town in southeast Ireland called Enniscorthy who works at a small shop run by a sour woman named Miss Kelly in 1952. One day, Eilis's older sister Rose arranges for her to travel to the US so that she may find a better life.
Thus, before she can even fully process the weight of her journey, Eilis boards a ferry and travels to Brooklyn, New York, which she soon discovers is home to many other Irish immigrants like her who have family in their home country. She begins living in a boarding house run by an Irish landlady named Mrs. Kehoe (Julie Walters from the Harry Potter films) along with several other girls around her age, both Irish and American, and aspires to become an accountant. Eilis also begins working at a department store, although her initial shyness renders interactions with customers difficult.
At an Irish dance, Eilis also meets a young, hip Italian-American boy named Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen) who works as a plumber. She soon begins dating Tony, and in addition to her job, is enrolled in bookkeeping classes at a local college thanks to help from a friendly Irish priest from back home named Father Flood (Academy-Award Winner Jim Broadbent). Eilis thus begins to feel more accustomed to life in New York. However, after a family tragedy forces her to return home, Eilis becomes the recipient of another young man's advances: a boy named Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson from About Time, Ex Machina). Eilis is quickly forced to choose between two men and two lifestyles: her traditional life in Ireland, or her promising new life in America.
Two aspects of this movie stood out the most for me: the portrayal of the era, and the lead actress's performance. I am of course much less familiar with the way Ireland was during this time, although the depiction of 1950s New York is uncannily similar to many pictures I've seen and texts I've read across the years: from the brightly colored clothes and traditional bathing suits, to the old, shabby apartment buildings and cars.
Miss Ronan undoubtedly carries the film with a heart-wrenching and sincere performance which has earned her an Oscar Nomination for Best Actress, her second after her first nomination for Supporting Actress for Atonement in 2008 at the tender age of 13. It is clear that she is a versatile actress whose film career, despite being relatively recent, has already proven her prowess for playing a wide range of characters. From a lethal assassin to a girl possessed by an alien, to a rebellious, sharp-tongued American girl living in war-torn England, and now to a good-mannered, polite and proper Post-War-Era Irish girl immigrating to New York, Miss Ronan has certainly demonstrated her star power as a foreign actress in Hollywood.
In every major scene in Brooklyn, Ronan displays with unwavering excellence the various emotions her character experiences throughout her journey as she is questioned, controlled, and beaten down by many of the people around her: fear, joy, sorrow, confidence. In the end, Eilis represents the modern-day 'miss independent,' (even if the film does not take place in modern times) who ignores others' desires for her and chooses the life her heart is telling her to pursue, and Saoirse Ronan elegantly displays that.
The script is also very meticulously written, (Hornby is also nominated this year for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay) and although I have not read Mr. Toibin's novel upon which the film is based, nearly every scene and exchange of dialogue is crafted with care, giving each major character life and demonstrating the weight of this drama. Even the few lighter, more comical moments that are interspersed throughout the film are clever.
Miss Ronan's film career will undoubtedly continue upwards after this role, and (aside from the fact that I may have just completely fallen in love with her) I am sure she will be given the opportunity to play several more memorable roles.
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