REVIEW: Brooklyn (2015)

Brooklyn comes with all the bells and whistles of a major Hollywood production, but underneath its classical trappings, its score and its range of veteran character actors credited under ‘with’ and ‘and’, the film is refreshingly simple and personal.

The film begins in Enniscorthy in Wexford in 1950, Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) is a young woman in her twenties with no prospects in her home town. She has decided to go to America in an effort to find a better life. She moves to Brooklyn with the help of her sister Rose (Fiona Glascott) and friendly priest Father Flood (Jim Broadbent). Suffering initially from homesickness, Eilis finds love in an Italian-American Tony (Emory Cohen) and manages to make the big city feel like home. However, a tragedy forces her back to Ireland and she begins to question the meaning of home.

Brooklyn is an old-fashioned story and its handling here feels very much like a throwback to classical Hollywood. John Crowley’s direction is all stately, well-framed shots and slow, ruminative tracking shots – a bit of a surprise considering the jerky, nervy Intermission. Indeed, everything from the direction to the costumes, the score and the tame humour adds to this impression. And as an old-fashioned romance tearjerker, it works quite well, moving along at a decent pace, tightening the screws with only an element of manipulation. The romance between Eilis and Tony and Eilis and Irishman Jim (Domhnall Gleeson) are pleasing without being overly convincing. The romances here falter from a feeling of narrative convenience in some stretches, rather than a natural character development. However, this hurdle is overcome by the sincerity of the performances. Ronan goes for quiet and subtle throughout, which works quite well and is a pleasant surprise in a film released towards a particular season. Julie Walters and Broadbent do great work in little character roles. Cohen and Gleeson suffer a little from under-written characters, but their performances are very good.  

As an adaptation, it flounders at certain stretches trying to fit in too many nuances that may work better in prose, often to the detriment of other moments that don’t get the time they deserve. The two central romances never totally seem right – both develop too quickly and inevitably to be wholly recognisable. This is not as much of a problem as it may seem, since the film’s clear focus is on Eilis herself and not on her romances. However the film falters in other ways. Late in the film, Eilis cannot seem to decide if she should remain in Ireland with Jim or go back to Brooklyn and Tony. We know that the Ireland and Jim option will not be chosen, having been given so pervasive a sense of a community conspiring to keep her there that all, even Jim, are appear suspect. But when she does decide to return to Tony, it seems as much to do with a bad run in with the evil Miss Kelly (played by Brid Brennan on slight material) than her independence or her love for Tony.

Where the film does work very well is as a tale of Irish emigration, of leaving one home and trying to make a new home of a confusing new place. This is where Ronan particularly shines – in quiet scenes, often alone, she creates a three-dimensional character who is confused and contradictory, happy and sad, nervous and excited, but always with an inner confidence and strength. Her performance holds the film together.

A poignant and traditional story of a young woman emigrating and making a home for herself, Brooklyn is a moving, funny and likable film. Though the film is a little light on development, it will stay in the mind for its heart-breaking examination of emigration, its avoidance of ‘big’ scenes and a great central performance. It’s also quite nice to hear a bit of Gaeilge in such a wide release.

IRISH REVIEW: Intermission (2003)

Though it would obviously be foolish to claim that Intermission owes more of a debt to something like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia than to films like Pulp Fiction and Snatch, Intermission is nonetheless much more a film about people than it is a self-consciously stylish showcase for violence and other things that its director finds cool. Director John Crowley and writer Mark O’Rawe (the not as successful Perrier’s Bounty) feature a variety of interlinking characters and plotlines but they never forget that the film is ultimately just about people trying to get by in life and love.

Small-time thief John (Cillian Murphy) decides to test the sincerity of his girlfriend Deirdre’s (Kelly MacDonald) feelings for him by breaking up with her. This all backfires when she is left broken-hearted and shortly afterwards takes up with a married man Sam (Michael McElhatton), who leaves his wife Noeleen (Deirdre O’Kane) devastated. Noeleen is encouraged to go out and try to find another man. Meanwhile, John’s love-starved best friend Oscar (David Wilmot) becomes increasingly depressed and his other friend Mick (Brían F. O’Byrne) is left unemployed when a small boy (Taylor Molloy) throws a rock through the front windshield of his bus, resulting in a remarkable crash involving Deirdre’s mother Maura (Ger Ryan) and sister Sally (Shirley Henderson), which sparks the interest of a documentary crew led begrudgingly by Anthony (Rory Keenan) who would much rather be filming the tough life on the streets of policeman Gerry Lynch (Colm Meaney) Gerry has it in for local hood Lehiff (Colin Farrell), who may have a proposition for John and Mick.

Intermission is a reasonably convoluted film but it doesn’t let itself get too bogged down in exposition. It is primarily the story of John and Deirdre with additions from a supporting cast, who have their own problems, some not as interesting as others but there is a general feeling of a close-knit community in an optimistic post-Tiger Dublin. If it isn’t the most taut plotting, it is forgivable since life is never simple and because the film romps along at a nice pace and a likable and easy-going tone. Cillian Murphy and Kelly MacDonald do well, but their parts are somewhat underwritten to make room for all the other characters, many of whom are very good. David Wilmot has a larger role here than many of his more recent roles and proves to be a very likable presence, as does Brían F. O’Byrne, Michael McElhatton and Deirdre O’Kane. Colm Meaney plays his typical role, the hard man who doesn’t realize how funny he is to other people, but he does it well here thanks mainly to a good script – something clearly missing when he took on similar roles in Whole Lotta Sole and A Belfast Story. Colin Farrell gets a great opening (with excellent use of ‘Out of Control’ by U2 – so exciting for an Irish film at the time and now, in retrospect, so optimistic) but he is surprisingly kept largely to the background until towards the end of the film.

What is so likable about Intermission though is the fact that it avoids the cool style and ‘funny’ violence that was so in vogue at the time that the film was made, preferring a light tone and a hand-held feel, making it a film about people, not trendy pop culture references, crime and violence. It is, more than anything else, a comedy and a rather funny one at that, though it is one that doesn’t avoid the more harrowing and gritty side of life on the streets of Dublin – the mean streets, as Meaney’s Lynch prefers to call them, though only to heighten his own hard-as-nails image.

As the film plays out, it becomes unclear what exactly the unifying theme behind the whole thing is, but by then, it also ceases to matter. It ends up being a small and really rather charming film – not wholly successful but certainly good enough – a pleasant surprise given the poster that was very suggestive of Trainspotting and Snatch. In the end, its primary value is that it is entertaining, full of good performances from a whole pile of recognisable faces (I didn’t even mention Tom Murphy, Conleth Hill, Laurence Kinlan and Ruth McCabe). It is mostly light, fairly unexpected and quite a bit of fun. And with a major stunt that was said to be the most expensive thing in Irish cinema at the time.