Brooklyn

Brooklyn, based on the novel by Colm Tóibín, tells the tale of a young Irish lass named Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) who leaves the limited circumstances of her village home and immigrates to the titular borough in New York City, lured by the promise of greater opportunities in 1950s USA.  Though her transition is difficult, she gradually creates a life for herself in her adoptive home, and then must make a choice about staying there or returning to Ireland.  The straightforward nature of the narrative prevents Brooklyn from feeling grand or important but it also enables many subtle moments to cumulatively take hold and produce a satisfying, poetic effect.  Writer Nick Hornby, proving to be as good at adapting novels with female protagonists (An Education, Wild) as he is at writing his own novels about men (High Fidelity, About a Boy, Slam), translates Tóibín’s prose into simple, direct scenes that flow effortlessly from one to another. His unadorned screenplay allows director John Crowley (Intermission, Boy A) and his actors to find nuance and small revelations in the spirited interactions and silent exchanges shared by the characters.

While the film lacks any significant conflict for far too long, the cast transcends the absence of tension by creating fully rounded characters that get right to the heart of one of this picture’s key themes: what does it mean to be Irish, regardless of where you live?  Julie Walters, in the role of Eilis’s boardinghouse landlady, would seem to embody the type of traditional caricature we might expect to see in a movie like this, but her Mrs. Kehoe is a delightful mix of conflicting ideologies, values, and advice. She brings much humor to the film, as do Eliis’ fellow housemates. Jim Broadbent resists any of the ethnic shtick he often gives into and creates a sincere depiction of the kindly Father Flood.

As Eilis’ beau, a good-looking plumber who possesses all the positive stereotypes attributed to Italian Americans and none of the negative ones, Emory Cohen makes the impossibly goodhearted and patient Tony utterly lovable (if not entirely credible). Domhnall Gleeson plays Jim Farrell, Tony’s rival for Eilis’ affections, and it’s great to see this actor—who so often plays mealy-mouthed insecure types—portray such a sanguine and attractive young man.    

But the film lives because of Ronan. The transfixing twenty-one year-old actress has been turning in fresh and singular performances since she first burst on the scene as Briony Tallis in Joe Wright’s Atonement (2007). Here, her transformation from plain and timid to vibrant and self-possessed recalls Audry Hepburn in Billy Wilder’s 1954 masterpiece Sabrina (though with a totally opposite style of acting: internal rather than external).  Though Eilis is passive—for the first half of the movie all her choices are made by other characters—we see the relentless activity in her mind, which enables to her take strong, confident actions in the second half. Ronan is able to almost telegraphically convey Eilis’ feelings in each situation. She makes the film well worth seeing. 

In cinematic terms, it’s difficult not to compare Brooklyn to the recent James Gray film The Immigrant (2013) with Marion Cotillard. That equally low-budget indie managed to give us a more complex character study while recreating its period setting to such a visually stunning degree that it took your breath away.  Of course The Immigrant tells the much bleaker story of a young Polish girl escaping her war-torn homeland for the New York of 1921 (inherently an older, grittier, and more dramatic time both visually and culturally). The fairytale of Brooklyn is a bit harder to fully buy into. There are many distracting moments where the settings look fake and cheap. For every beautifully lit real-world exterior or well-decorated set, there are shots that look like nothing more than actors in costumes standing in front of green screens.

The simplicity of the narrative doesn’t help these visual drawbacks. Our eyes and thoughts are encouraged to wander and explore the environment Eilis finds herself in, since that’s what she’s doing, and also because we don’t get swept up in her emotional dilemma until the film’s third act. Brooklyn comes across as a romantic fantasy more than an accurate depiction of life for Irish immigrants in the 1950s. This dreamlike quality would be totally fine if the movie had strived for a more idealized cityscape, rather than the best period accuracy achievable on a small budget.  Still, most of Brooklyn’s elements work harmoniously enough to create a wistful yet upbeat tone for a coming-of-age tale and a meditation on commitment to life’s choices.  When at its best, the film presents this young woman’s story in the way her future children might envision it when they’re ten or twelve years old.