WHY DID I CRY THROUGHOUT THE MOVIE “BROOKLYN”?

            At least five minutes into this beautiful film about a young Irish woman moving to America in the 1950s, the tears started.  “Brooklyn” taps into something profound and universal that should make all of us take notice, Irish or not. 

One can’t help but be moved watching the faces of Irish mothers waving sadly to their children departing on a ship for America.   A scene in New York of old Irish men getting their Christmas dinner at church tugs the heart as one of them sings alone, a  sorrowful lament in Gaelic.  In that moment it is not necessary to speak that language; the sense of loss and yearning is palpable.

            I didn’t grow up hearing stories of my immigrant past.  There was something about being Irish, but it was always followed by a joke.  There was no yearning for the old country, because it was a given that the reason for leaving was desperation, poverty, oppression.  “Brooklyn” captures the wave of immigrants who came out of the need to begin a new life with unlimited possibilities.  We don’t often see or ponder the difficulty of leaving behind the only life one has known to start over again in an alien place where one has no friends or family.  In “Brooklyn” we feel the unbearable loneliness and the questioning of the decision to emigrate.   Homesickness is described by a kindly Irish immigrant priest as an illness one suffers terribly for awhile, then it moves on to someone else.  Our nation’s immigrant past and present is far more complex than the narrative of a joyful arrival at the great “city on the hill.” “Brooklyn” reminds us to understand and appreciate the courage it took for our predecessors to come here.

            As “Brooklyn” comes to an end, the tears leave slowly.  In the sold-out theater where I saw it, this affecting movie kept much of the audience remaining for many minutes, Kleenex at hand.