John Crowley’s Brooklyn tells of young Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan; Atonement, The Lovely Bones) navigating her solo migration to New York City from small-town Ireland in the 1950s. When tragedy forces her back to Ireland, Eilis agonises over the choice between her two homes and the romances that pull her back to them. Irish director Crowley – best known for his 2003 debut Transmission – brings Nick Hornby’s screenplay adaptation of Colm Toibin’s novel to life, crafting a profoundly moving period drama.
Saoirse Ronan’s Eilis develops beautifully throughout – introduced to us as a plain and frankly difficult to identify with character, Eilis graduates from mousy, mopey wallflower to a vivacious and intelligent young woman. Though her development is rather slow-moving to start with, it makes the future iterations of Eilis all the more satisfying as the audience grows increasingly attached to her. The real stand-out in Brooklyn, however, is Eilis’ New York suitor, Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen). Relative new-comer Cohen, who had a minor role in 2012’s The Place Beyond The Pines, makes for a most endearing suitor; a hopeless romantic and a huge dork with a cocky, tough-Italian-guy smile. His unabashed, awkward professions of love give way to a genuine emotional complexity, causing even the most cynical of hearts to swoon. Harkening to Brando’s special brand of cocky charm from A Streetcar Named Desire, Cohen proves himself an astute and elegant actor with his rendition of Tony. Pulling Eilis back home is the stony-faced, interminably Irish Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson; Weasley twin, Harry Potter movies). Channelling Eilis’ wit and emotion, the more-reserved Jim is a perfect foil for the buoyant Tony.
To its credit, Brooklyn goes beyond the expected romantic-drama conventions to focus on Eilis’ personal trajectory and an exploration of our emotional conceptualisations of home. Less about the two men that occupy them, and more about the cities that Eilis’ oscillates between, Brooklyn works harder to romanticise the comforts of small-town Ireland and the energy of New York than it does any suitor. The end result does well to capture the buoying optimism and crushing heartache of finding a new home, and Brooklyn turns out to be a deeply touching and exceedingly genuine film that will provoke even the most shrivelled of tear ducts.
BY ALI SCHNABEL
