Audience applause at the end of the showing I attended of "Brooklyn" is something I can hardly ever remember from a cinema visit. Obviously a symptom of universal pleasure, it got me thinking about how and why this particular film. For me it had to do with nostalgia. Although I was probably the oldest member of the audience I daresay there could have been quite a few not so far behind. Were they perhaps thinking, as I was, that most of today's cinema just doesn't generate the emotional warmth that we so often basked in during the heydays of the '30's through to the '50's? That here for once was a work that succeeded in capturing just that. It so rarely happens. John Schlesinger's "Yanks" did it for me in 1979 when he memorably evoked the emotional effect that the departure of so many American soldiers had on a British community at the end of the war with all the intensity of a previous generation of directors. I thought of "Yanks" when I came away from "Brooklyn". Although the new film is much smaller in scale it has that same affection for characters that was the hallmark of the best of yesteryear. I had imagined that a film chronicling a young Irish girl's experiences of travelling alone to a new life in the States would be more astringent. Although it does not shirk social issues such as a beautifully observed Christmas lunch for elderly Irishmen who have fallen on hard times, it has a warmth and honesty that never verges on the sentimental. We care for Eilis, happy when she finds love with the good natured Tony, worry when her return to Ireland presents her with a nice but obvious second best and rejoice when all comes right at the end. A lovely film, lovingly directed by a newcomer to me, John Crowley.
Review of Brooklyn
