★★★★☆
Brooklyn is a familiar immigrant story, one that many families will know versions of as their own – but its sense of nostalgia is deftly offset with humour, charm and emotional intelligence.
Set between the small Irish town of Enniscorthy and New York, it follows a young woman, Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), as she goes “away to America”. Once there, she battles homesickness and loneliness, which are finally tempered when she falls in love with New Yorker Tony (Emory Cohen). It is here that Eilis finds herself split between two potential lives.
Ronan’s performance is emotionally rich and she translates the extensive inner life from Colm Tóibín’s novel to the screen, employing everything from a twitch of the eyebrow to a shift in her step. The camera lingers on her face for lengths of time that would see lesser actors fall flat, but this allows Ronan to really shine.
Like the novel, the texture of the film and its muted colour palette – deep green, teals and mustard yellows – give the film the feel of memory. But there is immediacy to the story, and a very real sense of uncertainty.
For a film that is so emotionally taught, Brooklyn has many very funny moments. Many of these happen around the dinner table of Eilis’ new home at an Irish boarding house in New York. Mrs. Kehoe (Julie Walters), their landlady, manages to elicit laughter with little more than a sharp look.
The main weakness is around the relationship between Eilis and Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson) that forms when she returns home for the summer. It feels truncated, as though there is something missing. This isn’t the fault of the performers, but is a problem with pacing that asks the audience to simply assume emotions that we aren’t shown. That aside, Brooklyn is an oddly beautiful retelling of a tale that could easily have felt too familiar.
Brooklynopens in cinemas on Thursday February 11.
