BROOKLYN (12A)
Saoirse Ronan, at 21, has come of age both personally and professionally with the film adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s novel Brooklyn, the story of a young woman who leaves rural Ireland in the 1950s with the hope of a better life in New York. Brooklyn places her between two countries, two cultures and two men as she looks back and forward with a growing determination to discover who she is. Without ever succumbing to the undulations of melodrama, the movie plots its course between the history-hugging issue of emigration and the much more intimate story of this girl’s future.
It is an even, nuanced, impeccably weighed and judged interpretation of the book that engages the theme of ethnicity without ever giving in to stereotypes. Director John Crowley paces and shapes it with a sure and sensitive hand, painting in the story’s social context – or contexts – with impeccable accuracy. I spoke to Crowley recently about his approach to the film.
“How long does it take letters to get to Ireland?” young Eilis Lacey asks a more seasoned traveller on the boat to America. “They take a long time at first and then no time at all,” comes the reply, encapsulating Eilis’ predicament in two lines.
The writing, surprisingly by Nick Hornby, is rich and perceptive but more than anything else it is the performances that infuse Brooklyn with its conviction. Ronan, who is in virtually every scene in the picture, is especially good. She is the functioning definition of a great screen actress, someone who says so much by doing so little, expressing confusion, fear, wonder, doubt through her luminous eyes.
As I’ve said she has come of age and we should be hearing a great deal more about her between now and the Oscar nominations in January.
BURNT (15A)
Of the recent trio of kitchen comedies, The 100 Foot Journey, Chef and now Burnt, the latter is probably the best but that’s not saying a great deal for it. It has moments of flashing invention but they are too few and far between to give this movie the kind of colourful personality that its cast, especially star Bradley Cooper, deserves.
He plays a once-revered Paris chef who was brought down by a spectacular drug and drink habit. Now he is in New Orleans, claiming to have learned his lessons and planning a return to the big time via London and an assortment of old acquaintances, several of them carrying grudges.
Burnt was written by Stephen Knight, and directed by John Wells who both have a background in heavy drama rather than the clever dialogue and light comic sense that this type of vehicle requires. It has its moments but, as I’ve said, not enough of them.
Every Wednesday on The Right Hook, Philip joins George to talk movies and TV. Listen back to the podcast below:
