Tower and Town, July 2016

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Brooklyn: A Film Review

Sympathetically adapted by Nick Hornby, from Coln Toibin’s novel set in the 1950s, this film tells the story of Eilis, played by Saoirse Ronan, a young woman from Enniscorthy in County Wexford. She almost unwittingly finds herself sailing off to America and new horizons, as there are no prospects for her in Ireland

She arrives in America which is a world of vivid colour; an extreme contrast to the chilly greys of rainy streets and cold churches at home. The film captures the widening horizons of Eilis’ experience as she becomes accustomed to these new bright surroundings. Initially bereft, lonely, missing her sister Rose and piercingly homesick, she gets a job in a department store. She finds her feet when Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen) asks her to dance, and then introduces her to Italian charm, cuisine and family life. She becomes happy and gradually acclimatised to American life. However, her sister in Ireland dies and she is called back for the funeral. Before she leaves New York, she and Tony marry secretly.

Brooklyn beautifully evokes the sense of being torn between time, place and identity. In Ireland Eilis is a daughter with a history, in America she is a woman with a future. In both she is filled with displaced longing. When she returns to Ireland Eilis is courted by Jim Farrel (Domnall Gleeson). She has a duty also to her mother. Loyalty to her secret husband prevails and she returns to America.

Just at this point I felt there was insufficient tension when she seemed to family and friends to have the choice of staying in Enniscorthy or going back to America, and she had to reveal to her mother her marriage to Tony.

It’s a beautiful rather old fashioned film which moves slowly. The inner conflicts are reflected in outer change, and we are guided through the transatlantic voyages of the story with grace and insight.

Music plays a role too: new verses and old choruses amid contrasting dancehall scenes. When Eilis helps serve a communal Christmas dinner to Irish down and outs, one of them sings a traditional Irish love song. A sublime sequence.

Soairse Ronan plays Eilis sensitively and compellingly. She has timeless lovely looks and a convincing Irish inflection; she convinces us that she could inspire the patient ardour of two very different men. Julie Walters is splendid as Mrs Kehoe, the matriarchal landlady of the boarding house, and Jim Broadbent plays Father Flood as a benign presence without soft soaping.

Costume, production, hairstyles, clothes, make-up, surroundings such as the contrasting beach scenes, guide us through the transatlantic voyages of the story. Brooklyn does not shout its virtues. Like its heroine it has subtlety, charm, courage and imagination.

Susannah McKim