The Case for Brooklyn by Tomris Laffly

by Tomris Laffly

What an unpredictable awards season this continues to be. The race, as the current roster of strong contenders stands, is rich with some foreseen and some late-blooming ensembles like Spotlight, Straight Outta Compton, The Martian and The Big Short. It’s edgy with the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant. And there is a helping of nostalgia in there too, with Bridge of Spies and even Inside Out.

True, a couple of these titles are female-driven. And also true, movies with female narratives like Ex Machina and Sicario are starting to enjoy a strong showing in the nominations of various industry awards. But what’s currently unknown is the fate of truly female-driven fare like the exquisite Carol, the sublime Room and John Crowley’s magnificent, romantic period melodrama Brooklyn, hailing all the way from Sundance of January 2015, stealing hearts and earning tears ever since. Brooklyn currently seems to be right on the bubble of earning a Best Picture nomination it so enormously and richly deserves. Additionally, a nomination for its lead Saoirse Ronan in the Best Actress category (thankfully, a sure bet) and acknowledgement for its craftsmanship across the board would also be well-earned.

My enthusiastic support for Brooklyn certainly doesn’t lie in empty tokenism, just so we can have an abundantly female-driven nominee in the Best Picture race. Yes, there is a part of me that wants to see this film in the line up for its unapologetic and well-conceived female-world, that celebrates a community of women, even sisterhood, in which women don’t routinely get pit against each other, but instead, willingly lend a helping hand to one and other. When was the last time we saw a Best Picture nominee with this sole quality? Juno? Maybe, but not quite. The Help? Perhaps, but then you have to overlook all of its troubling dynamics and problematic take on racial history. An Education? Not exactly. In fact, I had to go as far back as 1995 to land on Sense and Sensibility –yes, a Jane Austen adaptation- that possesses this exact quality.

This disconcerting realization aside, my enthusiasm for Brooklyn first and foremost dwells in the fact that Crowley’s film, tenderly adapted by Nick Hornby from Colm Tóibín’s novel, is a stellar achievement in filmmaking and storytelling. Talk about the kind of movie they don’t make anymore like they used to. Brooklyn is an old-fashioned melodrama with a classical feel; a universal story about the love and the ache of home, both the ones left behind and newly built from the ashes of past lives. Set in early ’50s and telling the story of a young Irish immigrant in Brooklyn named Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), this beautiful film –from its production design and costumes, to its cinematography and musical score- looks and feels like a million bucks. It’s one of those warm blanket-like movies that make you want to get wrapped up in during cold, rainy days.

But that is not to say Brooklyn is an end-to-end warm and fuzzy story, blissfully ignorant of sorrow. Hornby’s brilliant script not only compassionately embraces heartache and grief of homesickness, but also awards the viewer with a rare kind of gift: emotional healing through shedding of tears and acknowledgement of pain. It wouldn’t be a cliché to call Brooklyn life affirming. Thanks to the complex, but instantly relatable emotions it lovingly and patiently navigates, Brooklyn makes sure an aching part you –especially if you ever left a home, a city, a county, a lover, a family, and/or friends behind at some point in your life time (and who hasn’t)- hurts a little less by the end of it.

All this praise for the film’s many astounding qualities, and I haven’t even said a single word about Saoirse Ronan’s deeply resonant and quietly expressive performance. In my book, she delivers one of this year’s finest performances (if not “the” finest), among both male and female actors. As her director John Crowley expressed during the New York Film Festival Q&A of the film, Ronan could indeed be a natural silent movie star, as it is nearly impossible to miss certain acting qualities ingrained on her splendid face. Torn between two homes, two lives and two loves (superbly played by Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson) in America and Ireland, the feelings, moods and confusions Eilis experiences throughout Brooklyn amount to a rollercoaster ride, while she tries to establish her identity and live a complete life in dignity in either of the places that feel like home. And Crowley, well aware of the acting asset in front of his lens, thoroughly highlights his actor’s full range of talent in conveying all the layers of her trauma and eventual conviction. He stays close to and focuses on Ronan’s face, so we don’t miss a single smile or tear that she fills with profound meaning as she falls in love, makes a new home through resilience and hard work (with a little help from her community,) and discovers she is still very much haunted by the memories of those she’s left behind, including a mother and a sacrificing sister.

You don’t have to be an overseas immigrant like me to appreciate the fact that Eilis’ ’50s-set story rings very true for even today. I have spoken to people –men and women- that have moved towns on the same coast of America that also organically connected to the film’s themes with reflective empathy. But I’d imagine it might cut just a tad closer to the bone for those of us that made an unknown journey to a foreign land, with the hopes of finding a better life. Watching Eilis struggle in a haze, but still radically manage to stand up on her own feet by staying true to herself was not only gratifying, but also deeply melancholic for me. I realized, despite the long way I’ve come during my 15 years in The States, the home I left behind in Turkey was still an open and bleeding wound, which Brooklyn and Eilis helped close.

But hers is just one story. Mine is just another. With every heartbreaking refugee headline, with every outrageous remark that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth leading up to the next presidential election, “immigration” is once again an urgent topic of conversation in today’s political and humanitarian landscape. This is, without a doubt, the right time to let a profoundly pro-immigration movie like Brooklyn in to serve as a reminder; that immigrants from all over the world are and have always been in the very fabric and DNA of America.