{"id":19358,"date":"2016-02-28T19:49:12","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T09:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=19358"},"modified":"2016-03-08T21:03:21","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T11:03:21","slug":"brooklyn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=19358","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"brooklynposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director: \u00a0<\/strong>John Crowley
\nWriter: \u00a0<\/strong>Nick Hornby
\nCast: \u00a0<\/strong>Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent<\/p>\n

T<\/span>he year\u00a0is 1952. \u00a0With no job and few prospects in Enniscorthy, Ireland, Eilis (pronounced ‘Ay-lish’) Lacey decides to make a new life for herself in America.<\/p>\n

Her\u00a0sister Rose reaches out to the kindly Father Flood, a priest in New York who arranges for Eilis a job as a shop assistant and accommodation at a boarding hostel. \u00a0Although Eilis is excited at her prospects, she is saddened to leave behind her sister and mother in Ireland. \u00a0Rubbing it in, the local shopkeeper who Eilish worked for – a busybody named\u00a0Miss Kelly – sneers that Rose will spend the rest of her days doing nothing but caring for her mother because of Eilis.<\/p>\n

The journey across the Atlantic is a torrid one. \u00a0Dodgy soup dishes\u00a0and sea sickness make for a messy and unpleasant combination. \u00a0Eilis is helped out by a kind stranger, an Irish American who is returning to America after a brief visit back to Ireland. \u00a0She gives Eilis some sage advice on fitting in when she arrives on American shores.<\/p>\n

\"brooklynmovie\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Brooklyn<\/em> is based on a novel\u00a0by author Colm Toibin and the screenplay was adapted by Nick Hornby, himself an accomplished author. \u00a0It is a deliberately low key and subtle film, filled with lots of pleasing small details and minutae, both in the performance of Saoirse Ronan and in the little idiosyncrasies observed by director John Crowley about immigrant life in America in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

I like the laconic pacing of the film, with each snippet of Eilis’ new life – working, finding her independence, meeting boys – unfolding like a chapter from the novel, with every new development bookended with dinner at the boarding hostel. \u00a0The dinner table conversations, which are hosted by the impeccably mannered Mrs Keogh, typically involve\u00a0six young women throwing shade at one another and trying to assert a pecking order. \u00a0They are some of the film’s funniest moments.<\/p>\n

Eilis regularly writes home to her sister Rose about her new life. \u00a0Eilis longs for Ireland and has terrible bouts of homesickness at first. \u00a0It’s not until she finds her self confidence and direction (she begins to attend a night school to become a bookkeeper)\u00a0that her feelings about Brooklyn begin to change. \u00a0At an Irish dance hall, she meets Tony, a second generation Italian, and the two begin a courtship. \u00a0One thing leads to another and we think we know where the story is headed.<\/p>\n

But then a tragedy befalls Eilis and she is called home to Ireland. \u00a0At first she does not intend to stay for long but her family and friends call to her. \u00a0She is loved, needed and has a place in Enniscorthy. \u00a0There’s even a new guy on the scene, Jim Farrell, who takes an interest in her. \u00a0Suddenly, Eilis finds herself conflicted as to where she belongs.<\/p>\n

Brooklyn<\/em> is a film about finding home. \u00a0It asks of Eilis whether home is that place where you grew up, where your family lives and where the roots of your heritage lies. \u00a0Or is it somewhere new, a place filled with opportunity, with new cultures, new people to meet and a chance to start a family of your own. \u00a0I think everyone who watches\u00a0Brooklyn<\/em> will understand the direction that the story is headed but it is sweetly told and beautifully crafted all the same. \u00a0The film is heavily centered on Saoirse Ronan’s performance which is nuanced, understated and thoroughly enjoyable. \u00a0Eilis is a softly spoken character and often times she is called upon to show flashes\u00a0of determination, vulnerability or hearthache without the use of dialogue. \u00a0It is Ronan’s panache and sincerity in these key moments that make the film what it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Irish woman emigrates to New York to make a new life for herself but she struggles to leave her hometown behind<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2390,2447,2448,2449,2450,2446],"class_list":["post-19358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-domhnall-gleeson","tag-emory-cohen","tag-jim-broadbent","tag-john-crowley","tag-nick-hornby","tag-saoirse-ronan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19358"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19448,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19358\/revisions\/19448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}