Brooklyn (film)

In 1951, Eilis Lacey is a young woman from Enniscorthy, County Wexford, a small town in southeast Ireland, where she lives with her mother and sister, Rose. She is unable to find full-time employment, and works weekends at a shop run by the spiteful Miss Kelly, nicknamed "Nettles Kelly". Eilis is uninterested in the local young men. Her sister writes to an Irish priest (Father Flood) in Brooklyn who arranges for her to travel to New York City. Eilis suffers seasickness on the voyage and is locked out of the shared toilet by her cabin neighbours. The woman in the bunk below her, an experienced traveller, gives her advice and support.

In New York, Eilis lives at a Brooklyn boarding house with other young Irish women. She has a job at a department store but her shyness and sad demeanor with customers garners some criticism from Miss Fortini, her supervisor. Eilis has difficulty adjusting to her new life and her sister's letters makes her even more homesick. Father Flood gets her enrolled in Brooklyn College bookkeeping classes, as Eilis wants to become an accountant. At an Irish dance, she meets Italian-American Tony Fiorello, an amiable plumber. They begin dating, and she gradually adapts to living in New York as their romance becomes more serious and she meets his family. Her personality at work improves.

When her sister unexpectedly dies, Eilis tells Tony she must return home to help her mother. Tony shows her a plot of land on Long Island his family intends to develop and will include a house for them. He asks Eilis to marry him before she leaves. Eilis is hesitant but agrees, and they secretly marry at the courthouse. While there, they happen to bump into an Irish couple.

Once back in Ireland, Eilis falls into a new life, temporarily taking her late sister's bookkeeping job, and being set up with well-off bachelor Jim Farrell. It is a completely different life than the one she left behind for Brooklyn. She extends her stay to attend a friend's wedding, and avoids reading Tony's letters. Jim comes close to proposing marriage, but she is noncommittal.

Miss Kelly, Eilis's former employer, tells her that she knows through gossip from the couple at the courthouse that Eilis is married. Agitated, Eilis realizes what it was really like living in this small town. She tearfully informs her mother about her marriage and that she is returning to Brooklyn, leaving a departure letter for Jim. On the ocean crossing, she offers guidance to a young woman making her own first trip to Brooklyn. The film ends with Eilis and Tony reuniting and happily embracing.

Principal photography filming began on 1 April 2014 in Ireland, and was shot for three weeks at different locations including Enniscorthy, Wexford, and Dublin.[7][8][9] On the first day of shooting, Ronan was spotted in period costume on the set in Enniscorthy.[10] After finishing production in Ireland, it then moved to Montreal, Quebec for four weeks further.[8] Two days were spent shooting in New York at Coney Island.[11]

Brooklyn is set during a time when Irish migration to New York was thriving. The initial boom of Irish immigration to the US had started during the period following the Irish Potato Famine (1845–49).[12] By the end of World War II, the rate of Irish immigration to New York had vastly lowered, but newly arriving citizens would still be able to find bustling Irish communities in which women were arguably a more significant presence than men.[13] These women immigrants were often very active in the workplace, placing marriage ambitions on hold to find practical occupations in places such as supermarkets, eateries and stores. Eilis makes her journey from Ireland to America in the 1950s, along with approximately 50,000 other immigrants (around a quarter of which moved to New York) as a part of the second minor wave of migration. Many of these citizens were in search of steadier jobs and a happier lifestyle. There were also smaller surges of immigrants from many other countries at this time, expanding the trend of towards modern day America becoming a vast land of many different cultures.[14]

Brooklyn is adapted from Irish writer Colm Tóibín's novel of the same name. It has been much celebrated in the literary world, with The Observer naming it as one of "The 10 best historical novels" in 2012.[15] In addition to this, it won the 2009 Costa Novel Award, was shortlisted for the 2011 International Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize. The film is generally perceived as a faithful adaptation of the novel, with Tóibín noting the overall "authenticity" of the film in an interview with The Washington Post.[16] However, the film notably diverges from the book in regards to its ending. In the novel, Eilis leaves Ireland, but her destination and ultimately her fate is left for the reader to decide. The film, however, gives Eilis a poignant reunion with Tony in Brooklyn. The novel and the film have equally been praised for their refreshing perspective on the plight of the Irish immigrant.

Brooklyn premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 26 January 2015. After it premiered, a bidding war began between The Weinstein Company, Focus Features and Fox Searchlight Pictures. Fox Searchlight Pictures prevailed, acquiring the distribution rights for US and other multiple territories for $9 million. The deal was one of the biggest to ever come out of Sundance.[4] It was selected to be shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.[17] The film opened in a limited release in the United States on 4 November 2015, before opening in a wide release on 25 November 2015.[18]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Brooklyn (film)

• Brooklyn on IMDb
• Brooklyn at Rotten Tomatoes
• Brooklyn at Box Office Mojo
• Brooklyn at Metacritic