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Review: "Brooklyn" (Spoilers)

Image via ComingSoon.net
Brooklyn shows a beautiful story of a young Irish woman, Ellis (Saoirse Ronan), who must leave her home in Ireland for New York in order to have a chance to live the life her family knows she will never be able to have if she stays at home. After a rough trip across the sea for Ellis, she arrives in New York where her new adventure begins, meeting some great people and some who are just not very good. While she is not very happy at first, she eventually gets to be happy and everything that happens to get to that point is so entertaining and full of both heartbreak and heart-warming moments, making Brooklyn  a very fascinating film and one of my favorites of the year.

What John Crowley was able to do was direct Brooklyn to near-perfection. There are so many things that Crowley was able to do right, yet my favorite part about this movie was the way in which it made you feel as if you were actually back in the 1950's. Everything from the costume design and the sets to the harsh realities of how difficult it was to move to a new country was just outstanding in the way it was presented. A lot of period pieces fail to show the full reality of whatever the time period is, but Brooklyn worked as well as it did because it showed the glamour of the 50's while at the same time showing how difficult it was to live in those times.

Brooklyn is a love story in more than one way. It is the story of a young woman stuck between two men that she loves, but it is also the story of this woman's love and yearning for her home and family. Though she is conflicted between the two men in her life, her most real heartbreak comes from her homesickness and the death of her sister. The way in which this was handled, without making the movie feel like there was too much going on, was perfect.

The performances were great all throughout, and Saoirse Ronan, in particular, absolutely deserves an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Emory Cohen as Tony, Ellis' love interest in New York, was great, as was Domnhall Gleeson as Jim, who was her love interest in Ireland. Her chemistry with both of them worked and I loved being able to see the way in which she was so conflicted by the two very different worlds that these two men could provide for her. I loved the story and the scenes where Ellis and Tony were together were always very heart-warming and never failed to make me smile. This is a movie that will make you go through a wide array of emotions and it deserves all the praise in the world. It is a fantastic story that will make you not want to miss a single thing. Simply put,  Brooklyn sucks you into its world and will make you not want to leave it. Don't be shocked when Brooklyn gets a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. It is a 10/10 for me.

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