The 2009 novel Brooklyn is written by Colm Tolbin and deals with Eilis Lacey, a young Irish woman in 1951 and 1952, who moves to Brooklyn to find work and a better life than the one she has in Ireland and quickly finds romance, but she must choose between the two America and Ireland and the lives in both that exist for her.
The plot line of the novel concerns Eilis as stated above, who is unable to find full time work in Ireland and through her older sister Rose, who sets up a meeting for Eilis with Father Flood, a Catholic priest visiting from New York, Eilis learns about the opportunities and employment that await her there. Based on his information, she moves to Brooklyn and works at a department store, taking night classes in bookkeeping, but finds the job boring and the living in a very strict boardinghouse, run by Mrs. Kehoe, is perhaps a mistake she made leaving Ireland. Her homesickness increases with the letters from her family, but lessens as she settles into a routine in Brooklyn. She meets and falls in love with Tony, an Italian plumber, does well in her night course and is invited to dinner with Tony’s family. Becoming more serious, he tells her that he loves her and plans to build them a home on Long Island.
Eilis learns that her sister Rose has died and has to return to Ireland. Before she leaves, she marries Tony, but while back in Ireland, she starts a brief relationship with a man named Jim Farrell, who is a local pub owner. Eilis’s mother is anxious for Eilis to stay in Ireland and marry Jim, but no one knows that she is already married. She extends her stay in Ireland, saving Tony’s unopened letters believing that she no longer loves him. Miss Kelly, the local snoop, tells Eilis she knows her secret because Mrs. Kehoe is her cousin and has told her. Eilis decides to leave, telling her mother that she is married, writes a farewell note to Jim and boards the ship to America.
The film follows closely to the literature, adapted to the screen by Nick Hornby, and is a traditional adaptation where most of the story is kept throughout the film with few elements added or dropped. Well directed by John Crowley, the film stars Saoirse Ronan as Eilis Lacey, Emory Cohen as Anthony Fiorello, Domhnall Gleeson is Jim Farrell, Jim Broadbent plays Father Flood, Fiona Glascott is Rose Lacey, Brid Brennan is Miss Kelly, and Julie Waters is Madge Chow. The film also contains a wonderful cast of supporting actors to round out the characters portrayed in the book in the film. As with the literature, the film takes place in Brooklyn, New York during 1951 and 1952, where Eilis finds love and romance and must choose between the two countries that she has lived in. The film delves more into her background, giving the viewer the necessary information to visually explain her life in Ireland, the voyage across the Atlantic, and then in New York.
Film’s story begins with Eilis, working weekends at a small store in Enniscorthy, a small town in Ireland, run by a spiteful Miss Kelly, Eilis, through her sister Rose has been arranged to go to America to have a much better future. While aboard the ship, Eilis suffers from seasickness and food poisoning and is locked out of the lavatory, but is helped by her bunkmate with advice and support for entry into the US and Brooklyn. Living in a boarding house run by an Irish woman, Eilis eats dinner each night with the traditionalist landlady and other young women. She works at a department store as a clerk and receives letters from her sister Rose causing her homesickness. Father Flood, the priest who set up her accommodations and job in America, helps her to enroll in a bookkeeping class in the evenings. While at a dance, she meets Tony and they get into a relationship, helping her to adjust to living in New York.
Unfortunately, Eilis learns that Rose has died and after a phone call with her mother who is struggling, Eilis decides to return to Ireland for a visit, but not before she secretly marries Tony in a civil service wedding. While back in Ireland, it appears that everyone is trying to keep her there. Her best friend, her mother and the man her friend has introduced Eilis to. Eilis gets her sister’s old bookkeeping job and begins to believe that she can have a future in Ireland that she did not have before she left for America and stops opening the letters from Tony. As lucky would have it, Miss Kelly, her former boss, meets with her and tells her she knows bout her marriage and through this meeting, Eilis is reminded of the mentality of the small town she used to live in and had managed to escape. She tells her mother that she is married and goes back to Tony and Brooklyn. On the ship returning to America, she is the experienced traveler, helping another first time emigrant. Eilis and Tony reunite as the film ends.
The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay while Ronan was also nominated for a Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA and Critics Choice Awards for Best Actress.
The visual effects are exceptional, especially the cemetery scenes with the marvelous headstones. The dialog is well written with a dialect that is easy to understand thanks to the wonderful acting by all those in the film. The editing, continuity and cinematography, along with the music (lots of violins and piano) that is used to pull at the heart strings. The makeup, costumes and 1950 props that are used more than suggested life in the 1950s in America and Ireland. This is a wonderful movie, portraying life during that time period because of all the above mentioned filmmaking techniques. GRADE: 5 of 5 crowns 
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