Brooklyn - B+

Quick Hit: A movie with a beautiful performance by its leads, decent performances by its supporting characters, but one that makes me wish that Hollywood believed in all nice guys.

​I’ll just come out and say it: Brooklyn is a beautiful movie. It is a tremendous love story about something between more than just two people, but about the immigration process in general. The United States wouldn’t be anything without its immigrants – and though this movie at times paints a darker picture, the love for the process of becoming an American is evident.

Brooklyn follows Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), an Irish immigrant who comes to America; specifically, Brooklyn. At first excited to leave a country that holds nothing for her, she quickly succumbs to homesickness. This is beautifully portrayed in a scene where Eilis is working and barely communicating with the customer.

After a priest puts up her tuition for a semester, things start to brighten for Eilis. She meets a young Italian gentleman, Tony (Emory Cohen). Things start to go well for her in America. It is a wonderful bit of film-making here, because the colors in the movie change. Eilis starts to wear brighter clothes. The sets have more light. It’s these little details that aim this movie toward greatness.

​But, since this is a movie, there has to be some source of conflict (unfortunately, people wouldn’t pay to watch a movie that was all sunshine and rainbows).  Eilis's sister, Rose, dies back home in Ireland – leaving her mother alone.  Despite Tony’s worries, she leaves New York and heads 

Those pants are wayyyy too high Tony.

back to Ireland. There, she is treated better than she has ever been treated. She is offered a job at Rose’s old firm. She meets a young man, Jim (played as a wonderfully tragic figure by Domhnall Gleeson – who is just in everything recently) (and I mean everything – The Revenant, Ex Machina, Star Wars Episode VII, Black Mirror, Anna Karenina, Frank, AND  of course, the Harry Potter franchise) who is looking for someone to settle down with. He is a well to-do lad who seems like there is much more to him, and treats Eilis with a wonderful amount of respect.
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So, I am going to go on a small rant here, and it is probably going to be the only thing I dislike about the movie. I have to discuss some things about the ending (nothing groundbreaking) that are slightly spoilers. So, just in case, here is my trademark spoiler break.
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Told you that you knew that guy.

I understand that Gingers aren’t the most attractive men. There is a whole documentary about it (Being Ginger). However, it’s awfully sad that this movie turns into a movie about a woman crushing a Ginger man for an Italian man. Jim and Tony both seem like nice guys. Do you 

really think Eilis is going to tell Tony about her escapades back home? No. Nothing she does in this movie makes us think she is going to tell her HUSBAND that she essentially dated another man back home. We don’t even know for sure that she told poor Jim she was married. She leaves the dude a NOTE! What is this middle school?

Ugh.

Doesn't she look intense here? Great job Ronan.

Ok. I feel better. Some other things I enjoyed were obviously the Irish accents. I have met lots of people with accents, and the Irish ones are just beautiful sounding. ​The scene where the guy sings in Gaelic is beautiful as well (can anybody hit me up in the comment section and tell me where I can learn Gaelic? I might make that a bucket list item).

​Once I got over my anger about the previous stuff, I had to think a bit about my rating. Overall, this is a pretty good movie, and I think the acting is good enough that everybody should watch it. Apparently the Academy agreed, since they nominated her for best actress. Anyways, I give this movie a B+.

Check out more about this movie on IMDB.