Directed by John Crowley (Closed Circuit) and starring Saoirse Ronan (Atonement; The Lovely Bones; The Grand Budapest Hotel; Byzantium), Emory Cohen (Beneath the Harvest Sky; The Place Beyond the Pines), Domhnall Gleeson (The Revenant; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; About Time; Ex Machina; Perrier's Bounty), Julie Walters (Educating Rita; Billy Elliot; Harry Potter...; Paddington; Mamma Mia!), Jim Broadbent (Longford; Iris; The Iron Lady; Paddington; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Harry Potter...).

Romantic drama, 111 mins, 6+.

Based on a novel by Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn is set in the early 1950s and sees Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), an intelligent girl from a rural background, hold a part-time job when a friend of the family organises a job for her in Brooklyn in New York. Her mother and sister are sad to see her go, the latter encouraging her to do well and keep in contact. The storyline tells of her experience on the boat and the trip across the Atlantic, her stay at the boarding house run by Mrs. Keogh (Julie Walters) and the various other girls resident there, meeting the fatherly and caring Father Flood (Jim Broadbent), working at a department store and her forays into Brooklyn's social life - in the Irish community - where she meets Tony (Emory Cohen), a young Italian.

A very atmospheric drama that moves at a thoroughly comfortable speed, neither too fast nor too slow, portraying at both macro- and micro- levels how life was in rural Ireland and in New York 65 years ago. A wonderful cinematographic tale that avoids being nostalgic and instead focuses on inspiring hope and dreams, the kindness of strangers, love and community life. It also deals with immigration (rather lightly), lonliness homesickness, and shows Eilis emerging from her shell and thriving in her new environment when she is the new girl no more.

Eilis takes up a bookkeeping course to further her studies as she is aiming higher. She then returns to Ireland and is encouraged by her mother and other members of the village to get to know Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson), an eligible bachelor whose parents are retiring and leaving him the spacious family home and the family business, a pub, to run. She then faces the agonising choice of to do what her family wants her to do - to stay, settle down and eventually look after her widowed mother - or to return to New York where she has been building a life for herself.

A wonderful storyline, great visuals and superb acting make Brooklyn a must-see.