BROOKLYN. Melodrama Is In Quite Good Shape

In Brooklyn, Ellis Lacey wants far more from life than a small town in Ireland can offer her. She lives with an overprotective mother and an older sister with whom she shares a strong emotional bond. It is largely because of her sister that she finds the motivation to leave the family home and sail to America—to broaden her horizons, breathe different air, and try to achieve real success. This is not, however, another realization of the American dream, but rather an attempt to climb even one rung higher on the social ladder. Simply encountering the wider world across the ocean and achieving a measure of stability there would already count as an accomplishment.

Ellis (played by Saoirse Ronan) is a sensible and responsible young woman—somewhat shy and quiet, yet aware of both her limitations and her possibilities. She is endowed with a warm, empathetic gaze and tenderness. She quickly wins my sympathy; I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. I root for her—she is charmingly innocent and kind—and I find myself warning her about uneven pavement so she doesn’t accidentally trip on the streets of New York City.

At first glance, Brooklyn seems like another predictable melodrama. The director, John Crowley, hops from one familiar plot point to the next without adding much of his own. The characters fall in love almost at first sight; an inevitable separation follows; and the words “I love you” are spoken in perfectly orchestrated circumstances. More than once, one can experience an unpleasant sense of déjà vu, because Brooklyn is clearly woven from clichés and well-worn motifs. The filmmakers, however, are not trying to dismantle genre conventions.

Fortunately, something from within breathes life into this ossified, familiar story: the performances of the entire cast. All are played with grace and authenticity. The central couple—Ellis and Tony (Emory Cohen)—is excellent. He is a straightforward guy, a plumber, the son of Italian immigrants: direct, energetic, with a fundamental decency shining from his eyes. Ellis absorbs his enthusiasm and optimism. They complement each other beautifully. Some of their dialogues linger in the memory, written with surprising lightness and sparkle. The supporting characters are distinctive and convincing, drawing the viewer’s attention—the landlady with whom Ellis lives, her supervisor at the shop, or the pastor who looks after the protagonist.

Brooklyn is also a comprehensive portrait of women in the first postwar years. We are given a spectrum of different personalities and attitudes. Ellis is confronted with her conservative mother while simultaneously fulfilling her sister’s dream of escaping the confines of a small Irish town. On the ship to New York, she meets an experienced, elegant woman who prepares her for life in a completely new environment, introducing her to the demands of the big city. Perhaps for the first time in her life, Ellis paints her lips with lipstick. She owes even more to her manager, whose confidence and style she likely envies.

All these female characters complement one another perfectly and together create an engaging picture—enriched with a palette of sincere emotions, needs, desires, fears, and ambitions of women, while also taking into account the social dimension of shifting gender roles in the 1950s.

Brooklyn is an intimate and modest film, at times charmingly subtle—perhaps even better suited to a television format than to the grandeur of a cinema screen. Structurally, it is classical cinema; formally, it plays it safe. It lacks the distinctive authorial stamp and boldness found, for instance, in this year’s Carol. Even so, Brooklyn proves that melodrama—a venerable yet somewhat forgotten film genre—is in quite good shape.