"Brooklyn" - Review

Eat Your Heart Out Nicholas Sparks

Saoirse Ronan and Emory Cohen in Brooklyn

I do not like Nicholas Sparks adaptations. Save for The Notebook that managed to transcend its material through its assured direction and memorable performances, each one is a copy-paste replica of the other with no emotional investment in the characters or the writing. They are lazy. Nicholas Sparks is to romance as Michael Bay is to action films. Granted, there can be a factor of guilty pleasure found in many of these directors' respective movies, but not in a positive way. I mean in a way that involves lots of heckling friends and a bunch of alcohol.

The main problem with "Sparks" movies is that the characters amount to no more than cardboard cutouts. What defines each of his films (and I use the term "define" very loosely here) is the central tragedy that befalls these poor flat characters. You do not remember the movies as "the love story between these two specific souls". You remember it as "the movie where someone gets sick or killed and there's also a ghost hanging around". The gimmick is the movie. That would be fine if the gimmick was at all original or interesting and they never are. But, get some beers and a couple of funny intoxicated friends and go to town tearing them apart. That is a lot of fun.

There is no gimmick in Brooklyn. What we have instead is a beautiful period piece with sympathetic and well defined characters that have more to them then just the romance. The film centers around Saoirse Ronan's character Eilis, who lives in the heart of Ireland with her mother and sister. She begins to believe that there is nothing holding her to home and she decides to make a new life in America, more specifically in Brooklyn, New York. It is there that she joins a boarding school, goes to night classes, and starts working. There is nothing there to hold onto, but there is a freedom she discovers to be who she wants to be without other people who already know her to tell her who she is. She soon meets the Italian Tony and a very sweet romance begins. For reasons I will not spoil, she is eventually called back to Ireland to be with her family and she finally has to decide where her home truly is. This is made more difficult when another man from her past begins to earn her affections.

I knew this would be a special film the moment when Eilis arrives in New York scared and alone and has a Christmas dinner with other Irish immigrants who had just arrived. It is cold and unsure. Then, in an absolutely lovely moment, an Irish man stands and begins to sing a traditional Irish song. The voice is alone at first and then it becomes one with the musical score in a moment that is inspired and heartbreakingly beautiful. It is the first sign of light that eventually encompasses the entire film. I encourage you to look up the lyrics for the piece after the film so you can truly appreciate its significance in that moment. Part of this scene is glimpsed in the trailer, but I would recommend that you skip it so you can have the moment to surprise you with its tenderness without having it be spoiled by hearing it beforehand. It was one of my favorite moments from a film in 2015 and deeply touched me with its simple elegance.

Something that I mentioned loving about Carol was its nuance when telling its story. It did not need to resort to melodrama or on the nose "emotional" performances. It allowed the truth of the story to provide the audience with the opportunity to feel and respond naturally. Brooklyn takes a page from that same playbook, especially with Saoirse Ronan's lovely performance. I fell in love with her sweetness and bravery right at the beginning. She is not defined by romance. The romance is just another part of a deeply human experience. The film uses the romance, among other things, to be the perfect metaphor for what immigrant life was like for new Americans in the 50's. It allows a modern audience to have a basic understanding of what it is like to be torn between two homes and two things that you love; basically what most immigrant lives were like. In another subtle way, it showed just how essential these new citizens were, and still are, to the United States. The presentation of the many cultures and how they beautifully intermingle and become one is very moving and such a nice backdrop to the personal journey that Eilis is embarking on.

If I were to have any complaints about the film, I would say that it's too little of a good thing. I loved every second that was on screen and I wanted more. It feels a bit rushed going from one life event to the next. Honestly, there is just a lot of ground to cover. The film comes in at just a little over an hour and forty minutes, which is about average for a typical film. I would have been happy to see that run-time be around two hours so the film could have a little more room to breathe and flesh out its story, especially with the second love story that happens in the last act of the film. What is there is great, but I would have loved to watch it grow more and form more of an emotional bond with what was onscreen in those moments.

However, this is but a small flaw in a very lovely experience that I can recommend to any kind of film-goer. It is absolutely joyful throughout and has a very mild and accessible PG-13 rating so that it can have the widest audience possible. It is a very sweet love story that has many impressive elements to distinguish it from the rest of the pack. The look of 1950's Brooklyn is bright and beautiful, the performances are infatuating, and the story is lovely. I hope it gets recognized for awards consideration next month, notably Saoirse Ronan for her masterful performance.

Grade: A

Brooklyn is now playing.