Review of Brooklyn (2015) by Wayne K — 25 Jan 2016

With a setting as authentic as the performances themselves, Brooklyn is a genuinely touching and honest movie. Rather than simply recycling the typical romance clichés that have long-saturated the genre and led it to becoming something of a punchline, it instead sets out to tell a very real story with very real emotions.

Much like The Spectacular Now it isn't afraid to show a love story beginning and developing through its characters most basic of interactions, not through contrived occurrences or profundities. Saoirse Ronan is truly fantastic in the lead role, and her emotional development and maturity is the movie's centrepiece.

From shy small-town girl to big-city woman, the character is moulded by her environment and the people in it. When she switches between her new home and her old it is easy to see how differently she acts in each of them, before and after her life-altering relocation.

The film's use of lighting and colour help to set the mood, and while the score can be overbearing at times, it really helps to push the emotional moments. The pacing, which is admittedly a little to pedestrian, may weigh the movie down in places, but with likeable, relatable characters, beautiful historic detail, a witty, down to earth script and truly marvellous performances, Brooklyn more than succeeds as a human drama, emphasis on the word human.