Oscar season is upon us, and so comes the more unique (Anamolisa), unnerving (The Revenant), and unapologetic (The Danish Girl) film releases from studios both large and small, all in hopes of gaining more fiscal and critical glory within Hollywood.
One of the earliest released, small(er) budget Oscar contenders, Brooklyn, is really none of the aforementioned descriptors; if anything it is unassuming – a film that offers no real cultural dissonance, dialogue, or distress – and therein lies the film’s true beauty. It is soft, sweet, thoughtful and tender.
Brooklyn (adapted from the 2009 Colm Tóibín novel) is a period piece chronicling a young Irish girl, Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), and her journey emigrating from Ireland to the United States, and assimilating into American society in the early 1950s.
At its core, Brookyln is a coming of age story, in which Eilis is faced with a variety of obstacles, modest in nature, but altogether riveting with their realism. The subtle reality of Ronan’s performance offers much more depth than the average coming of age story:
We witness Eilis learning (the hard way) how to operate on an trans-Atlantic voyage – through a particularly graphic bout of food poisoning mixed with sea sickness, in what will surely be one of the more graphic Oscar-worthy performances in years past.
Ronan deftly presents courting in 1952 Brooklyn with the same subtle anxiety and palpable emotion not uncommon in today’s dating scene - at a dance put on by the local church, Eilis eventually meets her husband to be, Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen). Tony, an Italian boy, shows much more interest than Eilis, but chips away at her hardened exterior in hopes of one day winning her heart. They meet every night to walk home from Eilis’ night classes at Brooklyn College, where she studies to become a bookkeeper. Their exchanges become more intimate and earnest, talking about raising their kids to be Brooklyn Dodger fans, as Tony helps Eilis find a sense of belonging in America.
Just when it seems that Eilis has finally carved herself a place in Brooklyn, and life was beginning to look up, there is wretched moment in the film’s third act. Eilis, still working at Bartocci’s Department Store, is informed by Father Flood (Jim Broadbent) and Miss Fortini (Jessica Pare) that her biggest supporter and beloved older sister, Rose (Fiona Glascott), who gave up the chance of a life of her own in order for Eilis to chart a path to America, has died.
Eilis’ sister’s death catalyzes the film’s ultimate dilemma. Being called back to Ireland to put her sister to rest, familiar faces come back with great reverence and regard for the Americanized Eilis, including one Mr. Jim Farrell (continuing an already impressive year for Domhnall Gleeson). For the rest of the film, Eilis is tasked with choosing which life suits her best, framed by delicate moments of painstaking decisions between the familiarity of home or her responsibility for her life lead in America.
More understated in tone than its source material, screenwriter Nick Hornsby and director John Crowley masterfully transport an already charming story to screen in a hyperrealistic manner. Dramatically speaking, the conflict in the film moves at a glacial pace, but therein lies one of the greatest aspects of Brooklyn – the film reflects the subtlety of charting one’s own course in life. An film that is sure to be a career defining moment for Saoirse Ronan, as well as an Academy Awards 2016 darkhorse – Brooklyn reminds us that there is no debt to one’s past, and the greatest moments in life are not owed to others, but rather, shared.