They used to say ‘home is where the heart is’, but what happens when a heart is split between two options? That’s the central premise of ‘Brooklyn’, an endlessly charming coming of age period drama which takes acclaimed best-seller of the same name to the big screen.
It tells the moving story of Eilis Lacey, a teenage girl sent to America by her sister hoping for a better life, sponsored by an also immigrant priest as she lands in the popular New York neighbourhood’s Irish community, buoyant during the 1950s. Once there, she will get a job as a department store assistant and begins taking night classes to become an accountant. After a few tough months struggling with homesickness and solitude, romance will knock on her door, setting a solid base for that promised brand new life. However, family circumstances prompt her to temporarily go back to her Irish small town, where all she left behind awaits and new opportunities to settle down would arise.
Saoirse Ronan, a strong contender for this year’s Academy award, is loveliness impersonated in the lead role. Her presence effortlessly carries the film and manages to pull all the right emotional strings. She stands out from a superb cast that offers something from everybody. Julie Walters is in top comic form as the grumpy landlady of her boarding house. Jim Broadbend is excellent as ever in the role of her sponsoring priest. Her Italian boyfriend, Emory Cohen, seems on track to become one of Today’s biggest film heartthrobs, as he gathers comparisons to a young Brando, and Domhnall Gleeson has never been better as his Irish rival at conquering her heart. Among the smaller roles, Mad Men’s Jessica Paré adds a touch of elegant bitchiness in the role of the greatest stores’ floor manager; the girls in the boarding house; the Locals at Eilis’ village or her Italian boyfriend’s earnest family also got small, but nicely depicted roles contributing to the film’s mosaic-like portrait of places and era.
‘Brooklyn’ has an old-fashioned vibe that successfully recalls the classic Hollywood weepie without falling into easy sentimentality, which in this cynical day and age is no small achievement. It means a giant leap for director John Crowley, a veteran of theatre and TV productions, after a few well received, but smaller scale works such as ‘Boy A’ or ‘Closed Circuit’. If the growing praise it’s been piling up since it was premiered at Sundance is anything to go by, it should become a massive hit.
One of this Year’s London Film Festival galas, during its Press Conference we learnt the book writer Colm Tóibín is very pleased with this adaptation: “ the picture captures better than a book the complexities of character’s personalities” and also it can capture with a single image what takes many pages to describe. Nick Hornsby, a novelist himself, is currently one of the most in demand screenplay writers. This year he’s earning praise for his work in ‘Suffragette” too, but his beautifully nuanced work in ‘Brooklyn’ is a superior work. He talked about the pressures of adapting another writer’s book, particularly when it is so universally loved. He praised the extremely beautiful source material, packed with wonderful minor characters.
Director John Crowley talked about the difficulties of a production that was shot in three countries with three different crews (Montreal was the third location) and out of order, adding an extra challenge “when you are trying to show a girl’s transformation into woman”. Whereas Saoirse Ronan told us how she felt connected to the book’s story which contains elements she can relate to, particularly on “the heaviness you experience when you are homesick. You miss home after having left, but you are still not settled in a new place” as she has also been moving between Ireland and New York. The young star praised the sincerity of her male counterparts and how helpful they were. She had also had admiring words for Julie Walters and the film’s beautifully designed clothes: “50’s fashions were so womanly; strongly encouraged woman to have proper shapes and curves. Unlike now”, about which the director emphasized he wanted them to be clothes, not costumes. “Bringing a sense of glamour, particularly when she returns to Ireland. Those clothes give her a sense of confidence.” ★★★★½
