One of the Oscar nominated films for Best Picture and one of our top 15 of 2015 has come home on DVD and Blu-Ray for the entire world to discover its awesomeness.
Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan (who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar), tells the story of an Irish immigrant who leaves everything behind to try to forge a better life for herself in 1950s America. She lands in the titular borough and as we follow Eilis Lacey’s journey, it becomes a terrific mirror to so many of that era and those prior that came to this country with nothing but hope and a dream.
The film also does a dazzling job of giving us a concrete feeling of exactly what Lacey was leaving behind — from her mother and sister, to a depressed landscape that is empty of opportunity. Director John Crowley also dazzles by painting the experience once she lands in Brooklyn as anything but finding a world where the streets were paved with gold (as many immigrants felt it would be).
Lacey lands in a boarding house with a handful of other young woman who are trying to make their way through a world that isn’t exactly welcoming for women joining the workforce. Our protagonist gets a job at a local department store and does a fair job, once she gets over her homesickness. The Catholic Church is an integral part of life, as it was back in Ireland. Lacey attends many socials/dances there, as well as gets life advice and support from the head priest. He sees something in her and recommends her to a local school that will train her in accounting. See… hope is rearing its head.
At one of those church dances, she meets a handsome Italian fellow named Tony (a charming Emory Cohen). They hit it off in one of the more delightful cinematic love connections we’ve seen in quite some time. But, something urgent summons her home to Ireland and before long, she’s being pulled between two worlds.
For more on the film itself, check out our theatrical Brooklyn review. The film is truly a stunner and is sure to warm the heart and soul.
When it comes to extras on the Brooklyn DVD and Blu-Ray,
Instead of a traditional “making-of” featurette, Brooklyn breaks up its behind-the-scenes informative pieces into six shorts under the moniker Promotional Featurettes. Each are between three and four minutes in length and combine cast and filmmaker interviews that add decent insight into the overall production and not simply how the film was pieced together.
Our favorites are The Story and Book to Screen. Both features explore the book by Colm Tóibín that first introduced us to Lacey and Tony’s love story and how it greatly informed the script that would be the entire blueprint of the film itself. Love delves into the heart of the story that makes us so, well, fall in love with it – the budding adoration between our two leads. Without this aspect of the story being pitch perfect, the entire picture fails.
Home is also an interesting feature as it shines a spotlight on the Ireland aspect of the tale and as we stated earlier, filmmakers had to paint a firm picture of Lacey’s homeland to show that what she was giving up was the kinship of family, but without the presence of any kind of hope for a prolific future in Ireland. How that was achieved in such a short period is a lesson in limited cinematic exposition.
Cast and The Making of Brooklyn are each impressive in their own ways. The only thing is we wish both were longer and delved deeper into each of their respective subjects. The casting of Ronan was clearly a no-brainer from the get go, but all of the other roles, specifically Tony, could have gone in any different of directions and how they came to choose who they chose is fascinating exploration of the magic of casting.
Deleted scenes without commentary are a bit of a pet peeve of The Movie Mensch’s. Seeing these moments in film and not hearing any kind of explanation from the filmmaker as to why they were cut, comes off as an empty effort. With the Brooklyn DVD and Blu-Ray, there are 11 deleted and extended scenes and having Crowley’s take on why he did what he did in the editing room shows off how incredibly smart this helmer is and how he instantly became a director whose name alone will get us into the theater.
Film: A
Bonus Features: B