Brooklyn

Brooklyn (12A)

Ireland/UK/Canada 2015 112 mins Dir: John Crowley Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domnhall Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Fiona Glascott

Of the opinion that today’s movie stars lack the attention-grabbing presence of their celebrated forebears? Along comes youthful Atonement Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan, whose beautifully modulated performance is the beating heart of moving new drama Brooklyn. And she’s not the only weapon in the movie’s impressive emotional arsenal.

As directed by Intermission filmmaker John Crowley (also the man behind two episodes of True Detective season 2), the movie exerts an irresistibly powerful pull, deploying a steady sense of pace, a love of faces and a scrupulously designed production to draw audiences into the 20th century Irish immigration experience. Credit also to author-turned screenwriter Nick Hornby whose sensitive adaptation of Colm Toibin’s bestselling novel marks his second such achievement this year (he also transformed Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild into a gripping Reese Witherspoon-starring odyssey).

Ronan plays Eilis Lacey, a young woman in 1950s Ireland who has made the decision to leave her County Wexford town behind and begin a new life in America. Fed up with the lack of prospects for women yet simultaneously agonising over leaving her mother and sister, Eilis is a character in a perpetual state of flux. In a display of the film’s confident storytelling economy we begin with Eilis having already made her decision, Crowley’s use of heartrending close-ups conveying all the heartache and pain of her family with barely a word being said.

One of the film’s most gorgeous moments occurs when Eilis departs for the new world, Crowley slowing the action down as she waves goodbye to her relatives whilst the camera pans over those other people also bidding farewell to their loved ones. It’s the film in a microcosm: intimate yet wide in scope, a coming of age tale that plays out against the backdrop of one of the 20th century’s biggest ethnic and cultural shifts, abetted by Michael Brook’s lovely, delicate score.

Having survived the rough Atlantic crossing (“It’s nice to talk to people who don’t know your auntie,” says a fellow passenger), Eilis is washed up in the dizzying, dazzling metropolis of Brooklyn, her arrival signalled in a lovely, fleeting shot where she’s framed by angelic white light in the exit doorway of the immigration centre. Taken under the wing of acid-tongued yet kind-hearted boarding house owner Mrs Kehoe (a typically scene-stealing Julie Walters), Eilis is initially wracked by crippling home-sickness, her new job in a snooty, upper-class department store not exactly helping matters. But redemption and happiness may be at hand when she meets and falls in love with charismatic young Italian-American Tony (an utterly winning Emory Cohen). Finally, the future appears to be set – but when tragedy strikes and Eilis is compelled to return home, her life is further complicated by the presence of potential new suitor Jim (Ex Machina’s Domhnall Gleeson).

Possessing the unshowy, clear-eyed precision of a classic big-screen idol (the use of a ship as a narrative device of course calls to mind Bette Davis’ Now Voyager), Ronan is outstanding in the central role. For a film in which the gulf is both physical and emotional, the impact of the drama largely hinges on the actress’s ability to depict Eilis as a child of two worlds, a character deeply connected to her cherished homeland yet also inexorably drawn to the modernism and advancement that America offers. It’s the very antithesis of an Oscar-baiting performance, drawing the audience in through understated mannerisms as opposed to grandstanding.

She’s backed by a superb supporting cast, none of whom feel like sketches (also impressive are Jim Broadbent as a kindly priest and Fiona Glascott as Eilis’ beloved sibling, Rose). But what really makes the drama so effective is its refusal to soft-pedal. Although the narrative is often vibrant and good-humoured, Crowley and Hornby are intelligent enough to realise that Eilis’ quest for personal happiness inevitably carries with it a residual air of sacrifice and sadness, feelings often inflicted unwillingly on those closest to her.

This subtle pragmatism helps keep schmaltz and sentimentality at bay, and in spite of the film’s romanticism it also has backbone and brains to go with its heart. Perhaps no scene best sums up Brooklyn’s myriad contradictions more than the haunting moment where a dispossessed Irish worker induces a room of his fellow homeless compatriots to silence by singing in Gaelic, his soothing tones evoking tears from Eilis who has volunteered to help serve the men Christmas dinner. As with everything else in this superb film, it’s noble, stirring, moving, intriguing and enlightening all at once.