BROOKLYN (review)

BROOKLYN

Written by Nick Hornby / Directed by John Crowley / Starring Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson

Eilis Lacey: Next time you’ll see me and say you love me, if there is a next time, I’m going to say I love you too.

BROOKLYN is more than just a love story set in an absolutely beautiful 1950’s Ireland and New York City. It is the story of a girl, without much keeping her anchored to her home town, who ventures off into a new world, alone and foreign, to become a woman. Filled with gorgeous sets and scenery, and stunning period costuming that stands head and shoulders above most other period films made of late, BROOKLYN is heartfelt, funny (actually pretty hilarious at times) and aims to pull at your heart strings, and succeeds.

Saoirse Ronan (THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, ATONEMENT) plays Eilis Lacey, a young girl who moves from Ireland to Brooklyn in order to find a job and a new life. Living in a boarding house for young women, with a staunch Catholic house mother, she passes her days working in a department store and taking bookkeeping classes at college by night. She soon meets a young Italian man Tony (Emory Cohen) who quite quickly sweeps her off of her feet. Still homesick and missing her mother back in Ireland, she travels back to her homeland when tragedy strikes. She is forced to make a decision about life and love, and the people and town she thought she knew, or perhaps knows all too well.

BROOKLYN moves seamlessly between making the audience laugh out loud, and moving them to tears, which is testament to Nick Hornby (WILD, AN EDUCATION) who adapted Colm Toibin’s novel of the same name. It is the kind of romance movie that has been missing from the cinema for a long time now, something that isn’t full of schmaltzy one-liners or moments that will make you roll your eyes. Instead it feels real while at the same time, it still manages to be sweet in all the right ways.

Your turn!

How many sheep would you give Brooklyn?

[kkstarratings]