Stories of youngsters moving away from home to find a better life are commonplace in movies, but BBC Films is adding to the genre with an adaptation of Colm Toibin’s book Brooklyn that will star Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent and Emory Cohen{
Nick Hornby is adapting someone else’s novel again, providing the script for director John Crowley who has just kicked off shooting in Ireland before moving where any self-respecting film looking to represent New York would head: Montreal.
Ronan is starring in the 1950s-set story as a young woman named Eilis, who in a quest to find a new life and some work moves from her small Irish town to the shiny new world of Brooklyn. There, she meets and falls for an Italian-American named Tony (Cohen).
But a family tragedy strikes, bringing Eilis back home, where she reconnects with her old community and finds Jim (Gleeson) trying to win her affections. Suddenly, she’s caught between two worlds and two potential loves. Some people have all the luck. Except for, you know, the tragedy.