“Heartbreak,” as Taylor Swift tells us, “is the national
anthem.” This sentiment is the backdrop of Brooklyn,
an achingly sensitive little movie, small in scope, but deep in emotional risk.
It stars Saoirse Ronan as Eilis, a young Irish woman in the 1950s who finds
opportunities dead-ending in a part-time job at a small-town shop. She
tearfully and nervously bids her mother and sister farewell, setting sail for
New York City, where a kind priest has arranged for her to have a safe place to
stay and a nice entry-level job in Brooklyn. What a big step for anyone to
make, let alone a young person with no connections or comforts, with only a
small suitcase and the clothes on her back. The movie, movingly bookended by
boat journeys, finds great power and exquisitely observed emotions in this
brave and difficult move. Restrained and heartfelt, the story proceeds simply
and delicately.
We see Eilis make tentative connections, to the opinionated
landlady (Julie Walters) and chatty lodgers at the all-female boarding house
for Irish immigrants at which she lives, to the intimidating but decent boss (Jessica
Paré) at a department store at which she finds work, to the avuncular priest
(Jim Broadbent) who checks in on her and helps find new opportunities for
education and advancement. There’s a lovely sense of community slowly
developing around our main character, as she navigates a foreign world she’s
slowly ever more determined to make her home. In the early passages, she is shy
and withdrawn, ill with homesickness, tearing up over letters from home, or
when hearing a Celtic singer at a Thanksgiving supper for Irish-American
homeless men. The tug of her safe and comfortable past is strong, but will she
let it interfere with gaining a foothold in a new, scary future?
Her most significant new relationship is with a charming
young Italian-American man (Emory Cohen) who draws her in with his flirtatious
teasing, sweet empathy, and loveable lopsided grin, all tangled up in his chewy
accent, broad and bold. They start going out, chastely dating, attending church
dances, family dinners, and the movies, like Singin’ in the Rain, which excites him enough to perch on a
lamppost in the park while he walks her home. The boss notices a change in her
demeanor and, upon learning it’s because of a fella, asks, “Does he talk about
baseball or his mother?” “No.” “Then keep him.” The blushing excitement of
young love merges with the excitement of making a life for herself that’s
entirely her own, and tempered by the fading but still present pull of Ireland,
where her family is increasingly only distant but powerful memories. She’s
still deciding who she wants to be, and how best to define herself.
Soft, but deeply felt, the movie keeps a tight focus on
Eilis, considering Ronan’s face, possessed with a placid maturity revealing
flickers of feelings turbulent underneath a surface of great propriety. Eilis
is a quiet character, who feels intensely, but still takes her time making up
her mind. Ronan allows this to be her source of strength, a studied and
reserved exterior projecting kindness and thoughtfulness. It’s a film that
prizes such quiet contemplation, studying Ronan’s eyes for subtle sparkles, and
allowing the ensemble to exude universal warmth. Tenderly developing
relationships are watched growing, shifting, and evolving, in a plot animated
by humorous charm and realistic sentimentality, arriving at big moments of grief
and elation with a softly insistent tugging on heartstrings. It’s a grade-A
weepie, not only because of any particular moment of sorrow or grace, though it
has those well-done, but from the spectrum of small moments, colored in with
emotional specificity.
John Crowley directs with great easy rhythms in poised
pacing and bright, warm colors. Tasteful period detail is neither fussed over
nor show-offy; it’s simply a fact of life, a time and place the oldest in the
audience can still remember, conjured up with the edges sanded down. It’s not
exactly a reflection of 50’s politics or unease. It’s far too personal and
intimate for that, attuned directly and pleasingly with its lead’s innermost
feelings. Crowley is a filmmaker with a penchant for sensitive character
studies, especially his 2007 feature Boy
A, which followed a young ex-con adjusting into his new freedom. There’s a
different sort of dramatic change at play in Brooklyn, but it’s no less carefully considered. Nick Hornby,
adapting a novel by Colm Tóibín, has a great ear for internal conflict teased
out through conversation and calm, capably and movingly brought to life by an
exceptional cast. It’s a film about a big transatlantic move, rich with
heartbreak and isolation slowly thawed through warm friendships, then
complicated by the temptation to give up and move home.
Hornby first became known for novels about men in
relationships vividly externalized (High
Fidelity, About a Boy), but has become a fine writer of screenplays about
women finding themselves through internalized decisions (An Education, Wild). He and Crowley may have authored the film,
their respective bests, but it belongs to Ronan, who dominates every frame with
a gentle inescapable magnetism. She’s able to communicate the subtlest of
feelings through subtle changes of expression, and yet somehow the effect is
anything but obscure. She’s found happiness, and yet feels divided loyalties.
No matter her American successes, there’s the strong call of Ireland, where her
mother would love to see her, and the locals would be happy to set her up with
a nice boy from the village. She has the understandable confidence it takes to
move across the world, and the fear of failure. Brooklyn gets big effects out of small gestures, a comforting
classical melodrama shorn of nostalgia, except, perhaps, for how much easier it
was then to live in New York on a clerk’s salary. The result is a terrifically
involving empathetic and emotional excursion.
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