Brooklyn (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Brooklyn (2015) – J. Crowley

Saoirse Ronan is engaging as the shy Irish girl who ships off to America on her own at the start of the 1950s and finds her feet in an immigrant’s Brooklyn.  A heartfelt drama from director John Crowley that stirs one’s emotions.  Perhaps more so for me because there are some personal resonances here.  For example, my own ancestors would have made this journey 50 or 60 years before this film takes place (from County Clare), although likely as a family unit and not alone (I’ll have to check with my genealogist mom).  And, of course, I’m an immigrant too, although for different reasons in a different era and a different country.  When Saoirse meets Tony, her Italian beau (warmly played by Emory Cohen), the film delights in showing young romance, only to throw obstacles in the way (a bit of screenwriting 101 from Nick Hornby) when she has to head back to Ireland to deal with family matters.  What she finds there creates a dilemma that the film could resolve either way, but ultimately chooses the way that put tears in my eyes.  I’m a softie.  The filmmakers lovingly recreated the New York City that my parents knew as kids (seemingly) with all the situations and settings that presumably no longer exist (I suspect the same is true of Ireland).  All told, there is some magic here but nothing that stretches a viewer interested in a conventional romantic drama (or a romanticized view of the past).