BROOKLYN

This is another gently nostalgic movie. A beautiful romantic.

I am a sucker for movies based on the past. Everything about these movies scream vintage. The fashion sense, the beautiful landscapes, the subtle romance and oh boy … their handbags.

In Brooklyn, the plot follows a young Irish girl, Eilis (played by Saoirse Ronan), who leaves Ireland in order to escape the narrowness and limited opportunities of her hometown.

The move is planned by her sister who finds that there were no opportunities for Eilis to grow and wanted more for her, than she would be able to offer.  As Eilis travels to America, she leaves behind her sister and her mother, hoping that one day she might be able to return. Even though there is no certainty of that.

What follows is a slow and gentle ordinary series of events, of a young girl’s life who is thrown in situations by different life circumstances and has no choice but to cope. Eventually, she meets a gentleman by the name of Tony Fiorello, at an Irish dance. They take an interest on each other and eventually start dating. The romance between Eilis and Tony is slow, beautiful and ever so sweet.

We follow Eilis, as she progresses from a fearful small town young girl to a confident young lady, as one would blossom in the face of adversity, trying to create a home away from home.

Just as she is comfortable and settling well in her new lifestyle, a family tragedy forces her to temporarily go back home. You notice that in most of the movie, everything is seen from Eilis’s perspective. Her hometown, in the beginning is seen as a place of gloom with nothing else going on. When she returns, it is seen in complete contrast, filled with vibrancy and seeming to have a lot happening; not because the town has changed, but because Eilis has.

She finds that there is a lot more for her now, than there was before she left. This confusion causes a reluctance from her side whether to stay or to go back. Stuck in the middle to choose between her two homes, and I as the viewer was agonizing for her and with her. I could absolutely understand her reluctance. I did not know who or what to root for.

The movie just goes to show, how you can find home in the most strangest of places. And find that what you have known as home all along, turn out to be the strangest place. How we view the world is within us. Eilis’s transition makes you see that our eyes are just a reflection of what is inside us.