Brooklyn is a very old fashioned film, in that it approaches telling this immigrant story purely as a piece of escapist fiction. This is a film that wouldn’t feel out of place in Hollywood’s golden era, a time when every film seemed to take place in a magical, thoroughly romantic version of the world, where the concerns of the day never intruded into the lives of the beautiful people on screen. This feels a little strange in this day, but it is not unwelcome. Superbly crafted and featuring a terrific cast, Brooklyn thrives the very distinct pleasures of a bygone era.
Shy, timid Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) doesn’t have many prospects, either professional or romantic, in her hometown in Ireland. And so her much more successful sister has arranged for her to move to America. She arrives in Brooklyn to work as a shop girl, and quickly finds herself homesick and missing her family. But with some help, she starts taking night classes in bookkeeping. And then she meets and falls in love with a working class Italian boy, Tony (Emory Cohen). Slowly but surely, she begins to imagine her future in this new land, but then tragic news from back home brings her back to Ireland. Eilis soon finds herself torn between two possible lives in two very different places.
The film’s depiction of 1952 Brooklyn isn’t the most realistic. This was a pretty tumultuous time in America’s history, with the country thrust in a bloody war that wasn’t really going all that well, and fears of covert Communist agendas fueling xenophobia and racism throughout even the most seemingly progressive of areas. The film presents an idyllic immigrant experience, built mainly on the idea that love and happiness is what makes a home. The unassuming Eilis takes a mostly personal journey, slowly gaining the courage at the prodding of others to become something more than the sad Irish girl wishing to be back home with her sister.
Romance is the name of the game, the film presenting the dilemma of two fantasy lives in the shape of two very viable young men. Tony, the American, representing everything new that Eilis has gained through her experience in a foreign land. Back in Ireland, there’s Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson), who is every bit the image of everything she once yearned for. It is a credit to the film that it makes this choice seem like a real thing, with the two sides pulling at Eilis with equal strength, the possibility of joy palapable on either path.
What ends up cementing her decision is a little underwhelming, as it ends up feeling a tad arbitrary. But that doesn’t totally take away what the film has already built. It helps a lot that the movie is gorgeous from start to finish, the craft impeccable, and Yves Belanger’s camera unassailable in its construction of this world of romance. And Saoirse Ronan is the rare kind of actress that can pull off this role, the turmoil of her choice always present behind what appears to be a placid exterior. Eilis’ story is told in subtle movements of the face, little changes of expression that say so much. Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson are excellent in their roles as well, these younger actors serving well in a cast filled with seasoned veterans like Jim Broadbent and the incredible Julie Walters.
Brooklyn isn’t the most innovative or most exciting to come out in recent times. But it is no less sophisticated in its embrace of more classical attitudes towards escapism in cinema. This is a lovely picture that tells a story of how romance brings a new sheen on a gray life, on how simple humanity prevails in a world that can seem overly complicated at times. The story does peter out in the end, but there is still plenty of merit in how the film gets there.
My Rating:
