John Crowley
Brooklyn

This film doesn't say much, but what it does say, it says well. Thanks to the happy writing of Nick Hornby, to the talented and well-cast actors in relation to their characters, and to a perfectly calibrated rhythm that never descends into boredom. For long stretches, the story is the classic and simple coming-of-age journey, without great traits of originality. But it manages in the second part to unravel a problematic issue that is anything but obvious in its resolution.

For Saoirse Ronan, it is the consecration. A film like this cannot work without a great protagonist. She doesn’t miss a beat, perfectly immersed in the role, and is delightful in both melancholic and happy moments. Never excessive, she gives full vitality to her character Eilis. But in general, the entire cast works well and does justice to the good characters, translated from Colm Tóibín's novel to the screenplay by a decidedly in-form Nick Hornby. The characters, even the minor ones, come across with great immediacy to the viewer, without becoming two-dimensional masks. Hornby's is a chiseled work that distinctly characterizes the people in Eilis’s life, without reducing them to mechanical functions of the screenplay.

The story is nothing special, but it is told exceedingly well. Hornby has a great merit: often banal things are said in a non-banal way. Fertile writing brings freshness even to a simple and predictable declaration of love. Furthermore, the film succeeds very well in portraying those processes of gradual change that usually represent a sore spot in mid-level films. Thus, Eilis's evolution seems credible, justified by choices in attitude and commitment that dictate success (or otherwise defeat) in the various circumstances of life. Additionally, the final problematic knot (which I won’t reveal) is well constructed and really difficult to unravel. The viewer doubts what the best choice might be, perhaps even more than the protagonist herself. This is a great merit.

The aspect perhaps most at risk of being schematic is the comparison between Ireland and America. Eilis's final choice represents, besides a decisive event in her life, a symbolic element in the comparison between the two nations. Perhaps this is the major limitation of the film, the ambitious attempt to move from the particular to the general, when for large parts, it had kept the focus on the protagonist alone. However, in this aspect, it must have definitely appealed to the Academy. A fairly canonical story that aims to be paradigmatic; it would have been better to stick to the simple but well-narrated story. A cinema that does not dare in originality but knows how to have artistic dignity.