BROOKLYN

 When was the last time you watched a movie that punched you to your stomach and got carried away by the story that reflects to your living live so much? The purest heart of all love makes you realized that this is what is exactly lacking in this modern day relationship to find truth love. Without much hesitation but to contribute the most effort to make it work and unfortunately many had failed themselves for not doing enough to maintain a good relationship but took for granted and led to jeopardy.

BROOKLYN is the a heartfelt movie of of Ellis (Saoirse Ronan), a young woman who moves from small-town Ireland to Brooklyn in New York where, unlike home, she has the opportunity for work and a new life for herself, finding work and first love in the process. When a family tragedy brings her back to Ireland, she finds herself confronting a terrible dilemma – a heart-breaking choice between two men and two countries. To contrast her dilemma even further, love comes to her in the form of Italian-American Tony (Emory Cohen) and completely changes her new life.

On Ellis’ return to Ireland due to a family tragedy, she feels that life is different and maybe she should not have left after all, but small towns remain as small towns and this is a critical part in her decision-making process and a key element in the film’s plot development. The film leaves an indelible mark about how losing family members either through migration or death can create dilemmas that can be resolved in unexpected ways and out of heartache happiness can be found by some.

Adapted from Colm Toibin’s New York Times Bestseller by Nick Hornby – familiar by his own books and script adaptations such as An Education, About a Boy, High Fidelity, among others and is directed by John Crowley - an Irish television, theatre and film director with a couple of dab hands that really know this material extremely well.

The star of this film is the luminous Irish-American actress Saoirse Ronan, who brings real life experience from both of the worlds at odds with each other in this touching story of romance and emigration that so many migrants experienced over the centuries, as it were. The film is set in the 1950’s when America is on the rebound after the second world war, Ellis arrives in Brooklyn amidst a period of great development and happiness, but as expected, the transition is not an easy thing, even when first love comes her way.

This film has a great supporting cast of characters played with aplomb by some greats such as Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Domhnall Gleeson and Emory Cohen to name but a few,  you will be constantly swept up by all this experience and delightfully drawn characters. Julie Walters’ role as the boarding house ‘mum’, Mrs ‘Ma’ Kehoe, is a standout and absolutely delightful by adding many laughs to the film.

  

The settings for this film are picture postcard perfect and portray life on two different continents most convincingly, with a challenging journey by ocean liner as the connecting link to both worlds. As the director John Crowley references, “vast numbers of people in the world do not live in the country that they were born in, so there is a lot of economic migration that is forced upon some through personal choice and hence this story is completely relevant and truthful to that experience emotionally.

 This emotion is superbly drawn out of all the characters every moment in this film, there is a richness of experiences to be had from all concerned. This is a film which has such a strong message of hope that deserves a huge audience due to the marvelous story telling and cinematography and most of all, great acting from a huge cast of characters.

Review: 4.5/5