With the exception of that time she played an assassin in Hanna, Saoirse Ronan is often confined to roles unworthy of someone who can actually act (see: The Lovely Bones). So it's exciting to see her carry a well-constructed film once again, as she does in Brooklyn. Based on the novel by Colm Tóibín and directed by theater veteran John Crowley, Brooklyn's an understated study of a young Irish woman, Eilis Lacey (Ronan). It's a keyhole portrait of her displacement and resilience as she finds herself caught between her ancestral home in Ireland and 1950s New York, where she's found professional success and fallen in love with a cute Italian plumber (Emory Cohen <3).

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