‘Brooklyn’ begs the question: What is ‘home’?

If you haven't seen the movie "Brooklyn," you're missing out on one of the best films of 2015. Following is the review of the film that I wrote for Spokane Public Radio:

The story of immigrants coming to America is an old one. It encompasses a wide range of nationalities, ethnicities and religious preferences – and it’s been conveyed in as many different movie genres: romance, coming-of-age, crime, Western, tragedy, comedy. You name it.

So coming into a screening of director John Crowley’s adaptation of Irish writer Colm Toibin’s novel “Brooklyn,” you could be excused for not having high hopes. Yes, Toibin’s novel has attracted critical acclaim and a handful of awards. But novelistic quality has never automatically translated into cinematic success.

And a brief outline of the plot doesn’t help make its case: Ellis Lacey is a young woman, living tentatively in a small Irish village. Seeing no future for her, Ellis’ sister arranges with a Catholic priest for her to immigrate to the U.S. The trip over is hard, and the battle she has with homesickness is even worse. But Ellis gradually discovers an inner strength, and she endures. Pretty soon, she grows comfortable with her work, finds romance and begins to blossom – even to think of an actual career and a family life.

Then something happens at home, and Ellis is drawn back into her former world. Only this time, things seem different. She is different. And when life in the village begins to offer her opportunities she’d never before entertained, Ellis becomes torn. Should she return to Brooklyn? Should she stay? How, after all, do you define “home”: Is it the place you grew up in, or is it the place where you first found your adult voice?

At this point, what we’ve got is the basic template for a Lifetime movie. But director Crowley, working from a screenplay written by Nick Hornby, is far more talented than that. And with Hornby’s help – along with a skilled cast – he makes Ellis’s story into something truly special.

First of all, Crowley takes his time. “Brooklyn” unfolds gradually, giving us ample opportunity to know Ellis and the people to whom she comes in contact. And because he is so patient, Crowley is able to affect the kind of feel that a documentary filmmaker might achieve: an unerring sense of authenticity. At no single moment does Ellis change; instead she does so in fits and starts, which makes her eventual transformation that much more effective.

And throughout, Hornby’s screenplay – following, presumably, Toibin’s novel – veers back and forth through a range of emotions, embracing sadness when it comes, never avoiding Ellis’ tentative steps toward adulthood but also adding just enough comic asides to make her experience feel bearable.

It’s Crowley’s cast, though, that pulls everything together. Veteran actors such as Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent, as – respectively – a stern but understanding boarding-house matron and a friendly priest – do what is expected. But it is former child star Saoirse Ronan – the girl in Joe Wright’s masterful 2007 film “Atonement” – who shines.

At times, Crowley fills the screen with only Ronan’s face – and it’s almost as if, through her expressions alone, she manages to convey everything we need to know about this one young immigrant’s story.