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Saoirse Ronan excels as an Irish immigrant in the USA, torn between two loves |
Director: John Crowley
Cast: Saoirse Ronan (Ellis Lacey), Emory Cohen (Tony
Fiorello), Domhnall Gleeson (Jim Farrell), Jim Broadbent (Father Flood), Julie
Walters (Mrs Kehoe), Brid Brennan (Miss Kelly), Eva Birthistle (Georgina),
Fiona Glascott (Rose Lacey), Jane Brennan (Mrs Lacey), Jessica Paré (Miss
Fortini), Emily Bett Rickards (Patty), Nora-Jane Noone (Shelia), Eve Macklin
(Diana), Jenn Murray (Dolores), Eileen O’Higgins (Nancy)
In the 1950s, Irish immigrants flocked to Brooklyn to build
themselves a new life. Those who made the move often found themselves torn
between two worlds – the lure of the new life they were building across the
water, and the pull of the land of their fathers. Brooklyn, based on a successful novel by Colm Tóibín, places this
conundrum in an intensely dramatic context by making the conflicting calls on
its central character as much romantic as they are emotional.
Ellis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) is our homesick young woman, eager to
build a new life in America. Sponsored by kindly priest Father Flood (Jim
Broadbent, with more than a passing resemblance to Tóibín) and living in the
boarding house of kindly-but-no-nonsense Mrs Kehoe (Julie Walters, in a role
surely written for her) she finds work in a department store and trains at
night as book keeper. She meets and falls in love with a sweet Italian American
plumber Tony (Emory Cohen), but when tragedy occurs back in Ireland, on her
return there she is strongly drawn to her homeland and to kindly, handsome Jim
Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson). Which life will Ellis choose?
You can see why Brooklyn was
so popular with Oscar voters, and why it struck such a chord with so many
people. It’s reassuringly, warmly, old-fashioned, a big-hearted, brightly
filmed, gorgeously mounted “woman’s picture”, the sort of story that Hollywood
studios churned out in the 1940s and 1950s (you know, those sort of “who will
she choose!” films). Crowley pulls the material together however with real
emotional force, married with an interestingly different (if gently touched
upon) theme of the immigrant experience.
Helped by a very good script by Nick Hornby, Brooklyn is not only emotionally moving but also much funnier than you
might expect. Part of this is deliberate choice, expanding parts of the novel
(particularly the dry humour of Mrs Kehoe, seized upon with relish by Julie
Walters) that bring the funny, but also from the warmth, regard and humanity it
invests its characters in. Ellis is a character so well drawn, whose feelings
are so real, that we end up feeling deeply invested in her, and all the more
ready to respond to her quick intelligence and dry (but gentle) wit.
It’s a gift of a part for Saoirse Ronan, who is quite simply
outstanding as a quiet, sheltered woman who grows, changes and decides to
create her own destiny before our very eyes. (Helped by Hornby’s script again,
which uses the Ireland-USA-Ireland structure to pinpoint many dramatic bookends
and contrasts that Crowley subtly, and not forcefully, brings to the screen.)
Ronan’s intelligence and her conflicting desires are clear in every scene,
while her eyes seem able to communicate reserves of emotional depth. In two
cultures where it isn’t easy for a woman to define her own destiny, Ronan
brilliantly shows the difficulties many woman had in understanding or
expressing what they want, in a world where they haven’t been set-up to think
like that.
The film also doesn’t make it easier for her by making her two
suitors – while radically different men – both such charming, lovely guys.
Cohen’s Tony is a boyish enthusiast, full of hopes and dreams, who seems to
represent everything that America has to offer Ellis. Domhnall Gleeson’s Jim is
decent, honourable, kind, old-fashioned man who represents everything that she
realises her Irish culture has for her – tradition, decency and a sense of
self. It also speaks to how well drawn Ellis is by the film, and how deeply
well-though out Ronan;s performance is, that it makes perfect sense that these
two very different men would be drawn to her, and that both bring out different
parts of her personality, which never feel contradictory.
It works as well because we’ve lived through everything Ellis has.
She is present in nearly every scene in the film, and we see her change from a
shy, scared, frightened woman on the boat from Ireland who needs to be cared
for by an experienced emigrant fellow passenger (a very good cameo from Eva
Birthistle) to a woman who flourishes in her new surroundings and the opportunities
she is given. We need to feel that connection with her, since some of her
behaviour (if it came from a man) would probably be seen as quite shabby
indeed. But because we have such an understanding of her inner life – and
because Ronan has such an empathetic and expressive face – we understand the
reasons for her conundrum.
It’s that conundrum that lies at the centre of the film, and to be
honest what dominates it. It works because it is done with such emotional truth
(aided by Michael Brook’s excellent, heart-string tugging score that mixes
American sounds with Irish folk to glorious affect), but the film is primarily
a nostalgia romance. While it’s very setting makes you think about the
immigrant life, it has very little to say really about either the cultural
phenomenon or the impact it has on either the USA or Ireland (a charity
Christmas meal for former Irish railway workers now all homeless is as close as
it gets to talking about long-term integration). It doesn’t really matter,
because the central story sweeps you up so much, but it does make the film more
of a romance than the grander claims made for it by some as some sort of commentary
on Irish immigration.
But there’s nothing wrong with such a handsome, romantic,
emotional drama, or one that feels so reassuringly old-fashioned, even as it is
made with touches of wit and confidence. Making some welcome comments on
feminism, and led by Saoirse Ronan at her finest, it’s still a triumph of
old-style, romantic, women’s pictures that you’d have to be pretty cold not to
feel some sort of warming in your cockles by the end of it.
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