Brooklyn

This is our next film. I'm really looking forward to it as we started watching it at home but it was late and managed to miss the second part. Fortunately we have now scheduled it for later this week.

Here are my notes:

Brooklyn

UK 2015                      112 minutes

Director:                      John Crowley

Starring:                        Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent and Julie Walters

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for three Oscars (Best Picture, Best Actress (Saoirse Ronan) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Nick Hornby))
• Won BAFTA for Best British Film and five further BAFTA nominations including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Julie Walters), Best Adapted Screenplay
• A further 29 wins and 136 nominations

“What a moving, emotionally intelligent and refreshingly old-fashioned movie this is. The narrative may be perfectly situated in the early 50s, but the style of film-making harks back further still, to a time when “women’s pictures” were the backbone of popular cinema. Contemporary audiences raised on overblown spectacle and overwrought romance may have to recalibrate their reactions to appreciate the rich rewards of director John Crowley’s best film since 2003’s unexpectedly punchy Intermission. But for those enamoured of the 30s and 40s heyday of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck, Brooklyn feels like a breath of fresh air.”

Mark Kermode

 

A young Irish woman Ellis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) emigrates to New York City in search of a better life. Initially homesick, she begins to adjust to her new surroundings with the help of Italian-American Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen) with whom she becomes romantically involved. A family crisis then compels Ellis to return to Ireland where she meets Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson), and as a result she has to choose between two countries and the different lives they offer her.

Producer Finola Dyer read Brooklyn, the award-winning novel by Colm Toibin, after completing her work on An Education (2009). She felt that its story spoke to her on a personal level as her mother had emigrated from Ireland in the 1950s, and having met Toibin through a mutual friend he immediately granted her the film rights. Nick Hornby had produced the Oscar nominated screenplay for An Education and Dyer commissioned him to adapt Brooklyn for the screen.

Director John Crowley had read the book on its publication and agreed to take on the project after reading just 40 pages of Nick Hornby’s script. Crowley had himself emigrated from Ireland to London in his 20s and this was one of his main reasons for deciding to make the film. In an interview on its release he said he:

“…had emotional understanding from experience that could maybe help make this film not a period piece frozen in aspic, but could give it a directness that would resonate with a younger audience anywhere.”

At its premier at the Sundance Film Festival the film received a standing ovation and great critical acclaim, subsequently confirmed by the success of the film in the awards season. Following a bidding war for its distribution rights the film was released globally and to date has taken USD 62.1 million against its budget of USD 11.0 million.

After beginning his career directing stage plays in Dublin John Crowley made his name in the UK as an associate director at the Donmar Warehouse in London where he directed a filmed version of a short stage play by Samuel Beckett. He has subsequently worked extensively in theatre both in the UK and on Broadway. He made his feature film debut with Intermission (2003), a comedy drama set in Dublin and in 2007 won a BAFTA for Best Director for his film Boy A (made for TV in the UK but given cinematic release in the US).

It has recently been announced that Crowley will direct the film version of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Goldfinch.

Here's the trailer:

 

 

Never Let Me Go

Here are my notes for this week's film:

Never Let Me Go

UK 2010                      103 minutes

Director:                      Mark Romanek

Starring:                        Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, Charlotte Rampling and Sally Hawkins

Nominations and Awards

• Won Best Actress Award (Carey Mulligan) at the British Independent Film Awards
• Won Best Actor Award (Andrew Garfield) at the Evening Standard British Film Awards
• A further three wins and 20 nominations.

“This is a good movie, from a masterful novel...  What is happening is implied not spelled out.  We are required to observe.  Even the events themselves are amenable to different interpretations.  The characters may not know what they are revealing about themselves.  They certainly don’t know the whole truth of their existence.  We do, because we are free human beings.  It is sometimes not easy to extend such stature to those we value because they support our comfort.”

Roger Ebert

Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Ruth (Keira Knightley) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield) are all pupils at a boarding school who become entangled in a love triangle.  As their relationship develops they gradually learn why they are at the school and what their fate will be.   

The film is based on the 2005 novel by Kazou Ishiguro who won the Booker Prize in 1989 for The Remains of the Day (memorably filmed by James Ivory with brilliant performances by Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins in the lead roles).  The screenplay for Never Let Me Go was written by Alex Garland, a friend of Ishiguro who had purchased the film rights before the novel was published.  Garland is an established novelist in his own right (his novels include The Beach and The Tesseract) as well as a screenwriter whose work includes the scripts for 28 Days Later (2002) and Sunshine (2007) both directed by Danny Boyle, who had previously directed a film based on The Beach (2000).

Carey Mulligan was cast in the key role of Kathy on the advice of one of the producers who had just seen her performance in An Education (2009) and Keira Knightley agreed to join the cast after a request from Carey Mulligan (they had both appeared in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice where Knightley played Elizabeth Bennet and Mulligan, in her first film role, played Kitty Bennet. 

Mark Romanek began his career as a director of music videos where he worked with musicians of the calibre of k d lang, David Bowie, Madonna, Michel Jackson and Johnny Cash.  He made his name with the psychological thriller One Hour Photo (2002) for which he also wrote the screenplay, and Never Let Me Go appeared in many critics’ lists of the best films of 2010. 

Here's the trailer: