A very understated tearjerker, well directed by John Crowley, who uses lingering close-ups and hand-held cameras to convey the intimacy of Saoirse Ronan's perceptions, which, in fact, is where the drama takes place. Ronan sparingly uses her alabaster face to be a passive observer of the events that directly involve her, but she also effectively conveys her emotions through slight facial twitches, particularly through her mouth, which alternately tightens and widens based on the conflict of the moment. She plays a young, inexperienced Irish woman who moves to the United States in search of a better life and falls in love with an Italian plumber (Emory Cohen); when an unforeseen tragedy calls her home, she falls for a middle-class gentleman (Domhnall Gleeson) who promises her the better Irish life she yearned for but could not attain. It's set in the Fifties, so proper manners are observed and emotions rarely verbalized and it becomes a flaw of the film: at one point Ronan's shy and conservative character breaks unexpectedly (and confusingly) with the mores of the time; and both her male suitors are a little too perfect, never uttering a wrong comment or doing anything less than honorable. Yet the film has the power to move, owing to both Crowley's commitment to his lead performer (he also gets good work from his male leads and a funny turn from Julie Walters as the Brooklyn boarding house owner where Ronan lives) and an eloquent script by Nick Hornby, based on Colm Toibin's (unread) novel.
