Brooklyn (2015)

Jack, Sally, Mike, and I loved this story of a girl who leaves 1950s Ireland to start a new life in New York, boasting fine acting, beautiful images, wonderful period details, great art direction and costumes, and lovely music. The porcelain skinned Saoirse (pronounced SEER-sha) Ronan (last blogged in The Grand Budapest Hotel) stars as Eilis (pronounced AY-lish) and she's quite the talent, using her native Irish accent for the first time in 21 roles in 21 years of life. A day or two ago she won the New York Film Critics Best Actress award for this one. The reliable Jim Broadbent (most recently in Le Week-End) and Julie Walters (two Oscar nominations--Best Actress for Educating Rita (1983) and Supporting for Billy Elliot (2000)--also wonderful in Calendar Girls (2003), Wah-Wah (2005), Driving Lessons (2006), voice of the witch in Brave, and Cynthia the hotel owner in Masterpiece Theatre/Indian Summers, among others; she also played Molly Weasley in a bunch of Harry Potters) are soothing as adults who help Eilis adjust to her new life. I did not recognize Emory Cohen, who is sweet as the Italian boy who's sweet on Eilis, but I've seen him in Afterschool, The Place Beyond the Pines, and he played Leo, the sullen son of Debra Messing in 15 episodes of Smash. Back home in Ireland, two notable cast members are Fiona Glascott (I know her for her work with Walters, playing the frustrated wife of a preacher, in Indian Summers and as Matt LeBlanc's ex-wife in Episodes) as Eilis' sister Rose and Domhnall (pronounced DOE-nal--he says "the M is just there to confuse Americans") Gleeson (last in Ex Machina) as an Irish suitor.

Director John Crowley (I've seen two of his four previous works, Intermission (2003) and Is Anybody There? and liked them both) does a nice job from a script by Nick Hornby (most recently adapted the memoir for Wild), who adapted the novel Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (pronounced column toe-BEEN) (my Irish cousins would laugh at my pronunciation obsession--a few years ago I google-chatted with Dara and he said their dog is named Siomha. I had to ask how to say it. Shee-va. Go figure--another M, and more, just to confuse Americans). Anyway, the aforementioned beautiful images, many on location in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland as well as Montreal, are courtesy of cinematographer Yves Bélanger, who shot Wild. Want to know? It's Eve bay-law-zhay, but say the "law" with an N sound stuck in your nose.

Michael Brook's (scored The Perks of Being a Wallflower) pretty tracks can be previewed here and are supplemented by plenty of songs but no published list is readily available.

We're on the same page with Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences, averaging 98% and 93% respectively. See it now.