Director John Crowley’s marvelous new feature Brooklyn is a tale of the immigrant experience, a subgenre that has seen many commendable entries in recent years. (Sweet Land, The Golden Door, and Goodbye Solo are just a few of the form’s 21st-century highlights.) With respect to story and theme, there’s nothing especially revelatory within Brooklyn’s heartfelt, dignified margins. What makes the film exceptional is how impeccably it captures the emotional nuances of being ensnared between two worlds.
Saoirse Ronan portrays Ellis, a young Irish woman who travels to America in the early 1950s for a fresh start. She leaves behind a widowed mother and a sister who wants nothing but good things for her. Befitting its prosperous postwar setting, Brooklyn is not a film in which a forlorn, terrified émigré has her American illusions punctured by wretched events. Ellis has advantages, apart from being white, English-speaking, and a kind, hard-working soul. A century of Irish immigration has resulted in a robust support system for recent arrivals. Thanks to the Church’s string-pulling, Ellis rooms in a Brooklyn boarding house, works in an upscale department store, and attends night classes in bookkeeping. Of course, these blessings do not stop her from sobbing herself to sleep with homesickness. However, some balm is eventually provided by Tony (Emory Cohen), an Italian plumber with a sprawling family and a sweet, sensitive streak a mile wide.
Gradually, Ellis’ initial sense of isolation melts away. As the months turn into years, she begins to think of herself as an American and to contemplate a future with Tony. Then a phone call from Ireland compels her to return to her homeland for a period. After her long absence, her old village doesn’t seem as drab and stifling as she had remembered, and provincial local men like the handsome pub owner Jim (Domhnall Gleeson) don’t seem as tiresome. Townsfolk comment on how different and glamorous she seems, but they also exert pressure on her to stay in Ireland. A peculiar gravity seems to take hold of Ellis, and it appears as though—without making a conscious decision to do so—she could easily remain, abandoning her new life in Brooklyn.
Adapting Colm Tóibín’s beloved novel of the same name, screenwriter Nick Hornby crafts a story that is mostly lean in words but rich in emotion. Ellis’ tart dinner conversations with her fellow boarders in America are the closest Brooklyn strays to a more crackling, theatrical tenor. In the main, Hornby and director Crowley privilege what remains unexpressed, trembling just beneath the surface of a furtive glance or tight smile. It helps that the film’s heroine is portrayed by Ronan, whose diffident facial expressions and fathomless eyes make her ideal for the role. Appearing in virtually every scene, she carries the film splendidly, conveying every shudder in the intricate tug-of-war over Ellis’ heart.
Unlike the more subversive In Between Days or The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Crowley’s feature presents immigrant assimilation as a steady, progressive process. While this lends Brooklyn a whiff of conservatism, the film is ultimately more concerned with Ellis’ psychological struggles than the validity of melting pot myths. Brooklyn is essentially a tale of stark dichotomies—tradition and modernity, obligation and autonomy, comfort and risk—in which both alternatives have undeniable allure. This is underlined by cinematographer Yves Bélanger and production designer François Séguin’s gorgeous recreations of both New York and Ireland at the midcentury. An ungenerous observer might describe Ellis as fickle, but her story illustrates an essential human dilemma: Distance conjures a seductive illusion of segregation, and permits the luxury of forgetting lessons both harsh and cherished.
Brooklyn opens Friday, November 20 at the Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema, 1701 Lindberg.
