TIFF Film Review - BROOKLYN

BROOKLYN

Director:

 John Crowley

Writers:

 Nick Hornby 

Starring:

 Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Michael Zegen

A young woman in Ireland in the 1950's can't find work and her priest has arranged a job for her in New York.  She doesn't have any family in New York but stays in a female boarding house with a host of characters.  She tries to settle in and feel comfortable with her move to another country but doesn't feel like she fits in until she meets a handsome Italian plummer who is from Brooklyn. He shows her the beauty of New York and she starts to feel comfortable until a family tragedy sends her back to Ireland and she gains a new perspective on what her life may have been if she had stayed. She is now forced to make a choice between staying in her homeland or moving back to Brooklyn to be with the man she fell in love with.

I watched this film with a group of my film festival friends and one of them happened to be from the same town in Ireland and there were a lot of similarities in her own journey with the exception of the Italian man.  This film really got to her and there were a few of us in the group that went through a host of emotions while a couple of the guys just didn't understand as much.

This film was a nod to the old Hollywood romance films.   It isn't a face paced film but it's a beautifully told story about ones homeland and fitting into a foreign environment.

I would say 8 out of 10 of us really loved this film.   Art is subjective so I don't like to rate films but if the majority of a group of people like a film then you know you have something special.