Review of Brooklyn (2015) by Campbell P — 16 Jan 2016

Brooklyn is a 2015 dramedy starring Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, and Emory Cohen. This film follows the story of Eilis, an Irish immigrant who moves to 1950's Brooklyn and ends up falling for an Italian man named Tony.

When she finally makes enough money to visit her home country for a month, she gets cozy with gentleman, Jim. Will she stay faithful to her mate back home or fall for Jim and stay in her home country? The way this movie plays out is very clever.

Even though the overseas romance story has been done to death, Brooklyn manages to flip that cliche on its head. There's actually really good reason as to why she has a hard time choosing. In Brooklyn she has Tony and a nice job as well as great floor mates.

However, back home she has her family, Jim, and a great accounting job like her sister. It's really a difficult dilemma and it really felt real. The love triangle element felt real too, choosing between her past and present made for a really engaging plot.

Where this movie also shines is it's acting, costume design, and tone. The lead performance by Saoirse Ronan is one of 2015's best no doubt. I don't think there's a single scene without her in it except for maybe one, but she stole the entire movie for me.

Domhnall Gleeson has proven himself now that he can nail any role of his choice. Even with the amount of screen time he had, he still remained memorable. I felt the same way about Emory Cohen. He played a character and not an actor playing a character.

His persona felt real and genuine, never phoned in. The costume design isn't always something I look for in a movie, but the costume design was Oscar worthy and breathtaking. Everything that Ronan wore looked absolutely stunning and colorful.

The tone that this movie kept was really bizarre because I didn't expect it to be as quirky and funny as it was. I laughed a lot during this movie, which I didn't expect at all. The boarding house members were the masters behind the comedy for sure.

I wish there was more of them though, they just disappeared after a while (even before she went home). The problem I have with Brooklyn is that I loved the first 3/4s and then once she left, there wasn't really any quirkiness or comedy that the previous parts had and it bummed me out.

It turned full blown drama once she came back home to Ireland, which isn't actually a bad thing, but I liked the first 3/4s so much more due to the quirkiness. The connection between Eilis and Tong was cute and pretty funny too.

Their bond felt existent by the way they would tease each other and the conversations they had when they went on dates. The chemistry they had was really another highlight of this film. Brooklyn was a really sweet, funny movie that was serious when it needed to be, and funny when it was necessary.

It's acting shined bright as well as the quirky characteristics they portrayed. B+.