Brooklyn movie review & film summary (2015) | Roger Ebert (2024)

Colm Tóibín’s 2009 novel “Brooklyn” is one of those booksthat seems like a miracle, a book that reminds the reader just how much power canreside in relatively unadorned language. The Irish-born writer’s book tells thestory of Eilis Lacey, a young woman from a working family circa 1950. She’sbright, open and industrious, and there’s not much meaningful opportunityfor her in her small Irish town. An Irish priest visiting from the UnitedStates sponsors Eilis for a job in the book’s title borough, and Tóibínbeautifully tells of her uncomfortable crossing, her loneliness and alienationin her new world, how she finds her own way and finds romance, and whathappens after she’s called back to her old home—away from the place whereshe’s been working so hard to make good.

The story is simple, and told in a quiet register. Tóibín,who recently wrote a book celebrating the work of the poet Elizabeth Bishop,has both a novelist’s love of detail and a poet’s facility for linguisticmagic-by-compression. He uses every word carefully, and every sentenceis where it is for a very particular reason; therefore he’s able to weigh those sentences with intimations that aregenuinely metaphysical. Take the opening sentence of Part Two of the novel: “InJanuary, Eilis felt the fierce sharp cold in the mornings as she went to work.”That’s not a barrage of verbal fireworks by any means; one notices that Tóibíndeclined to separate the words “fierce” and “sharp” with a comma, and that addsto the speed of the sentence, but otherwise it seems well-wrought but ordinaryenough. But given where it falls in the sequence of prose, and what follows thesentence ... well, in that context it evokes a whole small world of distress. I hadheard many good things about the film adaptation of “Brooklyn” before I saw it,but I did wonder whether the film would even try to bring this dimension to thescreen. I’m happy to report that screenwriter Nick Hornby (himself a novelistof note) and director John Crowley do, on occasion throughout the wonderfulfilm, aim to do that, and succeed.

The director and screenwriter have been gifted with anextraordinary lead actor. In the role of Eilis, Saoirse Ronan is as alert,intelligent, and emotionally alive as the character herself. Ronan, herself anative of Ireland, has, in this movie, put on a very, if you’ll excuse theexpression, Irish-girl face: open, clear-eyed, with a not-hard jawline that’snonetheless set with a certain kind of determination. It’s the furthest thingfrom forbidding, but it also sends a clear message: she’ll brook no nonsense.

Eilis is also of course terribly vulnerable. In the film shehas a beloved mam and older sister (the adaptation excises the older brothersin the novel) and once she’s ensconced in a quasi-boarding house in a nicelybrownstone-and-tree-rich neighborhood of the New York borough to which she’ssailed, she misses them terribly. The movie has a spectacularly good sense ofplace and time without being too obvious about it; Eilis’ circ*mstances arecozy, slightly catty, and a little stifling. Once she meets a super-friendlyItalian-American fellow named Tony (Emory Cohen, so wonderful here that I’m nowinclined to blame his baleful work in 2012’s also baleful “The Place Beyond ThePines” entirely on that film’s director), her initiation into New-Yorker-dombegins. Screenwriter Hornby breaks out the interiority of Tóibín’s book byinventing some apt bits that result in heart-warmingly funnyscenes. Eilis gets lessons from her roommates in eating spaghetti, and the roleof Tony’s smart-alecky but essentially sweet younger brother Frankie isexpanded purposefully; the actor playing the “eight-going-on-eighteen”character, James DiGiacomo, is a certified scene-stealer.

Just as things are getting serious between Tony and Eilis,she is called back to her home to cope with a family tragedy. As much as she’scome to love her new life, the forces of homesickness and guilt, as well as theattentions of the kind, handsome local fellow Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson,worlds away from the f*ckless cyber-nerd he plays in this year’s “Ex Machina”)cause no small confusion for Eilis. Her inner conflict is played out withterrific sensitivity and understatement, but the director and the actorsdeliver the final click of the plot’s tumblers with no small emotional force.It’s a quietly devastating moment that, like much else in the movie, has aresonance that extends far beyond its immediate circ*mstances.

While Tóibín’s novel feels very much rooted in the time inwhich it’s set, the movie has more the feel of what Tennessee Williams calls a“memory play.” I’m sure that the excursion-to-a-Coney-Island-day-at-the-beachscenes in the 1941 comedy “The Devil And Miss Jones” or the 1959 “Imitation ofLife,” as Hollywoodized as they were, presented more realistic versions of suchexcursions than this movie does—I mean, Coney Island is/was a lot of things,but lyrical is not one of them. (The Brooklyn colloquial description of thelocation would be something along the lines of “zoo.”) As a choice, though, itserves the movie’s vision well. If I may be utterly, unabashedly frank, I admitthat the first time I saw this picture I started crying about forty minutes inand never really stopped. They were not all sad tears, I hasten to add.

The persistent feeling that this movie so beautifullycreates is that even when the world is bestowing blessings upon us, it’s stillat the bottom a sad place, and the key to an emotionally healthy existenceinvolves some rooted acceptance of that. The movie ends with Eilis having madesome substantial steps to that accepting place, and also determined to movepurposefully forward. People have spoken about how understated andold-fashioned “Brooklyn” is, to the extent that it might come across as apleasant innocuous entertainment. Don’t be fooled. “Brooklyn” isnot toothless. But it is big-hearted, romantic and beautiful.