Brooklyn (4/5 Stars)

Winter movies are generally awards fare and thus tend to gravitate toward the dramatic. The two movies I saw before this one were “The Revenant” and “Room” the two most intense movies of the year. I was ripe then to see “Brooklyn” an adorable movie about nice people in pretty places.

Nick Hornby adapted “Brooklyn” from the book by Colm Toibin about a young Irish woman who immigrates to America. Nick Hornby, well known for his novels about young men (Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, About a Boy) has made his last three projects on adapted screenplays of novels about young women (An Education, Wild, and now Brooklyn). It is a pleasant development and does its little job in trying to fill the yawning chasm in the modern movie marketplace for stories about women. His skill in drawing women is evident in the fact that the lead actress in each of his movies has gone on to score an Oscar nomination. Saoirse Ronan, who plays the lead this time, Ellis, is no exception.

Ellis leaves Ireland for economic opportunity. At home there is no job better than part time cashier. In America, she has the opportunity to develop. There are many people helping her. Her family in Ireland is supportive. In NYC, a kindly Irish Catholic priest (played by Jim Broadbent) helps her get a home in a boarding house, a job in a fancy Manhattan department store, and night classes for accounting. Such are the benefits of being Irish and immigrating to America in the 1950s as opposed to the 1850s. She is standing on the shoulders of 100 years of past immigrants who are kin to help her out. About the worst that happens to her is a bout of homesickness, which is cute because it only happens when nice people miss nice people.

Of special mention is the boarding house and the nightly dinners there. At the head of the table is Mrs. Keogh (Julie Walters) who prides herself on being strict and proper but betrays an absolute glee in spending her nights around the table with several twenty-something girls. She and the other girls, Patty (Emily Brett Rickards), Diana (Eve Macklin), and Shelia (Nora-Jane Noone), pull off something rather rare in movies. We have all seen characters that are funny without knowing it and characters that make wisecracks meant obviously for the consumption of a movie audience. But it is rare to feel like a fly on the wall in a place where there are several obviously witty people genuinely having a good time talking to each other. That is what is going on in these boarding room dining room scenes and it is a delight to watch them. I want to be there.

The Irish community in Brooklyn goes so far in helping Ellis that they actually facilitate her love life as well. She meets an Italian named Tony at a church dance. They start dating and Tony is a swell guy. He proposes something that he feels might be too fast and it turns out to be dinner with his family.

This leads to the only real conflict in the movie. At some point Ellis goes back to Ireland. She is walking around her dowdy small town with her education (which swiftly lands her a good job) and her glamorous NYC style (she stands out to say the least) and quickly attracts the small town’s most eligible bachelor, Jim Farrell (Domnhall Gleeson, again.) So now there is a love triangle but each guy is great so the audience isn’t really sweating it. I liked this movie. If you ever wanted a safe evening where nobody anywhere would be offended by anything and it also would be a decent movie, than this one is recommended.