Brooklyn

As an ex-expat, I know all too well the profound homesickness that can come with a major move. Whether that move is around the corner, or around the world — it matters not.  What singular activity can forge our character more than a move away from the familiar and the known?   Brooklyn (Crowley 2015),  a lovely film I had the good fortune to see at Sundance, (where it received a standing ovation) captures the ennui of displacement and the all-encompassing sense of isolation that comes with leaving home.

Not since Dorothy left Kansas, has a film captured the complex emotions of optimism and heartache, so beautifully and accurately. Saoirse Ronan is a luminescent wonder, at once exuding strength and vulnerability deftly and beautifully.  And the chemistry between her and relative newcomer, Emory Cohen was rare and tender and special.  I am relieved that according to IMDB, we're going to be seeing a lot more of this young man.  And then there is Domhnall Gleeson, I adore him and his character is so likable, it makes, what could have been a very mundane love triangle into something far more tortuous and tangled.   Brooklyn may cover familiar territory, but it does so with such  compassion, it rises above melodrama and sentimentalism.  Brooklyn is romantic, it's old school filmmaking, and it is beautiful.