Review of Brooklyn (2015) by Grant S — 19 Nov 2016

Ireland, early-1950s. Eilis Lacey is a young woman working in a grocery shop. She has greater ambitions and moves to Brooklyn, New York, leaving her mother and sister, Rose, behind. She is terribly homesick but eventually settles down, finding a job, studying to be a bookkeeper and meeting a nice young man, Tony. Things are going well but then she learns that Rose has died, and decides to return to Ireland, temporarily. She and Tony hastily get married and then she sets off back to Ireland, alone. Life is about to complicated...

Sweet film, but not anywhere near as profound as it takes itself. The set up was good and Eilis's finding happiness in New York was quite heart-warming.

The warmness and sweetness of the first half of the movie was enhanced by a wonderful performance by Saoirse Ronan. She imbues Eilis with great vulnerability, self-reliance, sweetness and likability.

However, the warmth and potential of the first half is mostly negated by the second half. Here the plot gets clumsy and contrived. A secret that shouldn't have been a secret and an implausible love triangle become the main plot devices of the second half. Instead of being engaged by Eilis's new-found happiness mixed with tragedy we have a convoluted, implausible soap opera unfolding.

Ending was reasonably emotional, but the Ireland sojourn definitely took the shine off the movie.