Movie Review: Brooklyn

Brooklyn is a mums’ movie. It's a movie for mums.

You know the type. A gentle sense of humour; a pervasive warmth; a thread of maternal love; ties that bind a character to a place, or a time, or a memory; maybe a cheeky joke or two.

Mums’ movies, of course, are not exclusively for mums. Philomena was a mum's movie, and a very good one at that. Now Brooklyn is one too.

Directed by John Crowley, the feature follows Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), a young Irish woman who leaves behind the small town of Enniscorthy to sail towards a better future in America, circa 1952.

(NB: Mums’ movies are not always about Irish women; just most of the time.)

Sponsored by Father Flood (Jim Broadbent), Eilis is given a bedroom at a Brooklyn boarding house for fellow Irish immigrants, presided over by spiky mother hen Madge Kehoe (Julie Walters).

Sick with nostalgia for home, Eilis struggles to find her footing in the United States, until she falls for Italian-American charmer Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen) at a church dance.

Suddenly home means something else to Eilis, and she starts dreaming of starting a family on Long Island with Tony. That is, until a tragedy calls her back to Ireland, where she’s tempted to stay with the dashing – and familiar – Irish suitor Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson).

Adapted economically by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) from Colm Tóibín’s book of the same name, Brooklyn is a lovingly told and well-performed immigrant tale. I am neither Irish, American, an immigrant nor a young woman, yet the story resonated deeply with me, having come from an immediate family of Italian migrants, growing up on stories about lengthy boat rides to new worlds and cavernous home sickness.

However, something from those stories didn't make the cut here: the discrimination. For the Irish, for the Italians, and for all the different peoples who found their way to America or elsewhere (especially in the wake of WW2), arms were not entirely outstretched. Eilis’ saga is one of almost universal, immediate acceptance. Even the family of her Italian-American boyfriend are remarkably welcoming.

In fact, beyond the Fiorellos, Eilis is seemingly never introduced to the multicultural beauty of her new nation. It’s true that immigrants often build their own communities abroad, but do they – and can they – remain isolated? If they do keep to their own, why? Neither of these questions are explored at all here.

Certainly Brooklyn is allowed to tell its specific story; that being of an Irish woman in a new land, contending with a love triangle that tempts her back to an old life. It tells that story well. Yet, it's a varnished glance at a specific era and immigrant experience.

There’s another elephant in the room. The overbearing whiteness of this borough, as depicted here, is disingenuous at best and nefarious at worst. Today, gentrified Brooklyn is a hive of white hipsters, but historically, it's been home to hundreds of thousands of black families.

Around the time of the film's setting, the demographic breakdown was largely white, though the pendulum had well and truly started its swing in the other direction. Alas, speaking parts for black actors are not to be found. Needless to say, Spike Lee's multi-ethnic masterpiece Do the Right Thing has not been unseated as the essential Brooklyn picture.

Still, Saoirse Ronan is luminescent in this golden-age movie star role, imbuing Eilis with great feeling and humanity. She makes the flick, which is entertaining and sweet and in all other senses, serviceable.

Brooklyn at least comes at just the right time for America – and the world – by making the case for immigration and reminding of those who literally built New York and cities like it from the ground up.

It tells one woman’s tale beautifully. The rest of her new country’s story, however, is left unfinished... and unseen.

3.5/5

In cinemas now. Rated M for coarse language and a brief sex scene.