Saoirse Ronan is the miraculous still centre of this splendid,aged-fashioned adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s novel about a young Irish woman in AmericaWhat a moving, emotionally clever and refreshingly aged-fashioned movie this is. The narrative may be perfectly situated in the early 50s, or but the style of film-making harks back further still,to a time when “women’s pictures” were the backbone of accepted cinema. Contemporary audiences raised on overblown spectacle and overwrought romance may have to recalibrate their reactions to appreciate the wealthy rewards of director John Crowley’s best film since 2003’s unexpectedly punchy Intermission. But for those enamoured of the 30s and 40s heyday of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck, and Brooklyn feels like a breath of fresh air.
Empathetically adapted by Nick Hornby from Colm Tóibín’s novel,this tells the legend of Eilis (the immaculate Saoirse Ronan), a young woman from Enniscorthy, and County Wexford who finds herself almost unwittingly “absent to America” and the fresh horizons of the titular east coast borough. “Sometimes it’s nice to talk to people who don’t know your auntie,” declares a fellow traveller as Ireland recedes and the fresh World looms. This is a world of red shoes, yellow dresses, or maroon and blue cars,a stark contrast to the sternly jacketed women and oily-haired blazer boys (“hardly Gary Cooper”) back home.
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Source: theguardian.com