Brooklyn - directed by John Crowley
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Julie Walters, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Jessica Pare, Brid Brennan, Fiona Glasscott, Maeve McGrath, Eileen O'Higgins, Jane Brennan, Eva Birthistle
Running Time: 112 minutes
Rated: M - mild language and a no-nudity sex scene
Saoirse Ronan is officially reason enough to see any film for me.
Not just for this film but way back as far as "Atonement" when pretty much the whole world sat up and took notice of her.
In interviews she is down to Earth yet confident and very, very funny.
And of course on screen she is arguably the finest actress of her generation.
I don't think that praise is overblown.
She seems to instinctively know just how to play characters so that they seem real.
That skill is clearly evident in "Brooklyn" - a film that relies not on heavy handed sentiment or overblown characterisation but rather on subtle performance and a script by Nick Hornby that shies away from melodrama.
Ronan has been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar this year with nods for Hornby's script and also Best Picture recognition.
"Brooklyn" deserves the nominations and more.
We first meet Eilis (pronounced Ay-Lish) in Ireland working in a local grocery shop lorded over by a woman named Mrs Kelly.
This awful woman fawns over the wealthy customer who walks in after the 'less worthy' and serves her first.
'I was next' protests a woman at the head of the gathered customers.
'And you still are' responds Mrs Kelly coldly and without any discernible shame.
Eilis boards a ship headed for New York where sponsored by the church she will start a new life in Brooklyn looking for the work that has eluded her back home.
She takes a room at a boarding house run by Mrs Keogh (Julie Walters) in which several other young immigrant women also live.
She obtains a job at a Department Store but is soon so crushed by home sickness that her role seems in jeopardy.
Her supervisor played by Jessica Pare ("Mad Men", "Hot Tub Time Machine") brings the Priest in who set up the move to America.
He signs her up for night school to study bookkeeping.
Attending a dance with her boarding house 'friends' she is approached by Tony - a local Italian boy.
This being the early fifties the courtship that ensues is very different from what you would see in a contemporary romance story.
It is all walks home with nary a hand hold to be seen.
But it works and it is all down to the performances, direction and Nick Hornby's great script adapted from the book of the same name by Colm Toibin.
I was watching Saoirse Ronan's face as Emory Cohen as Tony delivered his lines and everything that she is thinking is right there on her face.
The doubt, the excitement, the fear - all there.
Everything that could have been delivered in plot details is instead conveyed through character and performance.
The pain of being far from home and everyone that you care about is central to this film.
Eilis rights constantly to her Sister Rose who was instrumental in getting her to America until events conspire to get her home to Ireland.
The town seems to have conspired against her return to Tony who impatiently awaits her.
Her best friend is to be married a week after her planned departure and her Mother has accpeted on her behalf.
She is constantly paired up with Jim (Domhnall Gleeson) - clearly with the intention that they become a couple.
The tension is not only that of a woman torn between two men but one who is torn between two countries that both feel like home in different ways.
I don't recall a movie that conveys the awful feelings of home sickness like "Brooklyn".
It would have been easy to present America as an awful place unwelcoming to strangers.
Perhaps a mugging or appalling weather.
"Brooklyn" does none of these things.
People are nice to her and she has a reasonable job and a safe, decent place to live.
When she returns to Ireland there is much that she still loves but the question becomes which is truly her home- Ireland or America.
I loved that there is no cheap conclusion to any of these questions.
It is a far more powerful statement about being far from home for it.
I suspect that this will be Brie Larson's year at the Oscars but I would not mind one little bit of Ronan scored the prize instead.
(In fairness to Larson who I like a lot and whose performance in "Room" I have yet to see)
It would be a shame if Jennifer Lawrence won out for a performance in "Joy" that is the polar opposite of Ronan's in "Brooklyn".
Lawrence is great but David O. Russell's film is all flash and bluster with no characterisation and despite what claims he has made - nothing at all to say.
Awards success aside "Brooklyn" is already a huge success as far as I am concerned.
It is a sweet, quiet movie full of excellent performances (Walters and Broadbent are incapable of being less than brilliant)
The romance between Ronan, Cohen and Gleeson is a rarity in an age where increasingly graphic sex scenes or cutesy pitch-friendly set ups are in vogue.
"Brooklyn" was exactly the film that I was in the mood for tonight.
I went with a friend who had already seen it a mere two or three days ago and who maintained that it lost absolutely nothing on repeat viewing.
It is the sort of movie that I imagine I will want to revisit every now and then too.
Ronan is rapidly turning into one of the greats and with each passing year the camera seems to love her more and more.
A brilliant performance among many in an all round brilliant movie.
RATING: 83/ 100
CONCLUSION: Great work from Hornby in adapting Colm Toibin books and pitch perfect direction from Crowley. However it is the exceptional talent of Saoirise Ronan that towers over this terrific film
Running Time: 112 minutes
Rated: M - mild language and a no-nudity sex scene
Saoirse Ronan is officially reason enough to see any film for me.
Not just for this film but way back as far as "Atonement" when pretty much the whole world sat up and took notice of her.
In interviews she is down to Earth yet confident and very, very funny.
And of course on screen she is arguably the finest actress of her generation.
I don't think that praise is overblown.
She seems to instinctively know just how to play characters so that they seem real.
That skill is clearly evident in "Brooklyn" - a film that relies not on heavy handed sentiment or overblown characterisation but rather on subtle performance and a script by Nick Hornby that shies away from melodrama.
Ronan has been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar this year with nods for Hornby's script and also Best Picture recognition.
"Brooklyn" deserves the nominations and more.
We first meet Eilis (pronounced Ay-Lish) in Ireland working in a local grocery shop lorded over by a woman named Mrs Kelly.
This awful woman fawns over the wealthy customer who walks in after the 'less worthy' and serves her first.
'I was next' protests a woman at the head of the gathered customers.
'And you still are' responds Mrs Kelly coldly and without any discernible shame.
Eilis boards a ship headed for New York where sponsored by the church she will start a new life in Brooklyn looking for the work that has eluded her back home.
She takes a room at a boarding house run by Mrs Keogh (Julie Walters) in which several other young immigrant women also live.
She obtains a job at a Department Store but is soon so crushed by home sickness that her role seems in jeopardy.
Her supervisor played by Jessica Pare ("Mad Men", "Hot Tub Time Machine") brings the Priest in who set up the move to America.
He signs her up for night school to study bookkeeping.
Attending a dance with her boarding house 'friends' she is approached by Tony - a local Italian boy.
 |
| Domhnall Gleeson continues his incredible year an Ronan delivers yet another incredible performance |
It is all walks home with nary a hand hold to be seen.
But it works and it is all down to the performances, direction and Nick Hornby's great script adapted from the book of the same name by Colm Toibin.
I was watching Saoirse Ronan's face as Emory Cohen as Tony delivered his lines and everything that she is thinking is right there on her face.
The doubt, the excitement, the fear - all there.
Everything that could have been delivered in plot details is instead conveyed through character and performance.
The pain of being far from home and everyone that you care about is central to this film.
Eilis rights constantly to her Sister Rose who was instrumental in getting her to America until events conspire to get her home to Ireland.
The town seems to have conspired against her return to Tony who impatiently awaits her.
Her best friend is to be married a week after her planned departure and her Mother has accpeted on her behalf.
She is constantly paired up with Jim (Domhnall Gleeson) - clearly with the intention that they become a couple.
The tension is not only that of a woman torn between two men but one who is torn between two countries that both feel like home in different ways.
I don't recall a movie that conveys the awful feelings of home sickness like "Brooklyn".
It would have been easy to present America as an awful place unwelcoming to strangers.
Perhaps a mugging or appalling weather.
"Brooklyn" does none of these things.
People are nice to her and she has a reasonable job and a safe, decent place to live.
When she returns to Ireland there is much that she still loves but the question becomes which is truly her home- Ireland or America.
I loved that there is no cheap conclusion to any of these questions.
It is a far more powerful statement about being far from home for it.
I suspect that this will be Brie Larson's year at the Oscars but I would not mind one little bit of Ronan scored the prize instead.
(In fairness to Larson who I like a lot and whose performance in "Room" I have yet to see)
It would be a shame if Jennifer Lawrence won out for a performance in "Joy" that is the polar opposite of Ronan's in "Brooklyn".
Lawrence is great but David O. Russell's film is all flash and bluster with no characterisation and despite what claims he has made - nothing at all to say.
 |
| (left) Support from Broadbent and Walters is typically strong and (right) Crowley directs Ronan and Cohen |
It is a sweet, quiet movie full of excellent performances (Walters and Broadbent are incapable of being less than brilliant)
The romance between Ronan, Cohen and Gleeson is a rarity in an age where increasingly graphic sex scenes or cutesy pitch-friendly set ups are in vogue.
"Brooklyn" was exactly the film that I was in the mood for tonight.
I went with a friend who had already seen it a mere two or three days ago and who maintained that it lost absolutely nothing on repeat viewing.
It is the sort of movie that I imagine I will want to revisit every now and then too.
Ronan is rapidly turning into one of the greats and with each passing year the camera seems to love her more and more.
A brilliant performance among many in an all round brilliant movie.
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