A Delicate and Heartwarming Masterpiece
Romantic dramas are rarely executed with as deft and light a touch as John Crowley's Brooklyn. Adapted from a novel of the same name by Colm Tóibín, the film tells the story of Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), a young Irish woman who is sponsored to leave her small town in the country where prospects are few, and journey to New York to start a new life. She begins to grow when she meets local boy Tony, though she's faced with a tough choice when she's urgently called back to Ireland and finds that more opportunities are available than when she left.
Every aspect of the film, from the music to the cinematography to the costumes and production design to the phenomenal performances are absolutely pitch perfect. The scenes in Ireland are subdued—avoiding the mythic feel John Ford (rightfully) adapted for the country in The Quiet Man—yet it's never portrayed as something hellish or Dickensian. The scenes set in Brooklyn similarly nail the feel of the city in the early 1950s without turning to cinematic caricature. There are no grand moments of Eilis running around the big city and gawking at the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building like a tourist. She's a homesick immigrant, and in her story, New York consists of her boarding house, her job, and the kind priest (Jim Broadbent) who sponsored her trip. With this approach, Brooklyn manages to take what can be depicted as a grand story—think of other "coming to America" films like The Godfather, Part II and An American Tail—and instead grounds it in the small, intimate reality of what life was like for people like Eilis.
Crowely, directing a heartwarming script by Nick Hornby, moves the story at a deliberate pace, allowing his subtle atmosphere to be absorbed and savored from the first shot to the last. Brooklyn feels more like a life unfolding than a plot moving from point to point, but it never drags or bores. Perhaps the most important part of this is the outstanding work by Saoirse Ronan, who, despite being a young Irish woman herself, is completely unrecognizable as Eilis. She gives a quiet and confident performance that captivates every second she's on screen, be it as the mousy new arrival or the comfortable and flourishing Brooklynite. Emory Cohen is similarly magnetic as Tony, giving his Italian Dodger fan plumber a gentle internal life that takes the character far beyond the caricature that fits his description. Julie Walters steals many scenes and brings quite a few laughs as the owner of Eilis' boarding house, and Domhnall Gleeson continues to do no wrong as he gives a charming performance as a man in Ireland interested in Eilis.
Somewhere along the way, Brooklyn becomes one of those rare films that feels like home. Some films are incredibly engrossing, take the recent Spotlight for example, but that's a very different thing. A movie feels like home when, simply by spending time in the characters' presence, you feel reunited with something familiar and dear. Brooklyn gets every detail right, physical and emotional, but it's greatest success is that as Eilis forges a new life for herself, the audience is right there with her. Her home is ours, too.