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BROOKLYN – Review by MaryAnn Johanson

MaryAnn Johanson 0 Comments
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brooklynposter I cannot even imagine what it must have been like for Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan). She’s not a real person — this movie is based on Colm Tóibín’s completely fictional award-winning novel — but the power of Brooklyn comes from how beautifully and how sensitively it portrays a very universal experience of countless immigrants who’ve taken long journeys to new lives and have had to come to terms with how it changes them. (And that becomes an even more universal experience, as immigration becomes a metaphor for growing up.) For Eilis, departing small-town Wexford, in Ireland, for New York City in the early 1950s, this means a multi-day sea voyage, no phone calls from home — certainly no Skype! — and only an occasional letter to break the homesickness. Read more>>

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MaryAnn Johanson

MaryAnn Johanson is a freelance writer on film, TV, DVD, and pop culture from New York City and now based in London. She is the webmaster and sole critic at FlickFilosopher.com, which debuted in 1997 and is now one of the most popular, most respected, and longest-running movie-related sites on the Internet. Her film reviews also appear in a variety of alternative-weekly newspapers across the U.S. Johanson is one of only a few film critics who is a member of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (the Webby organization), an invitation-only, 500-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities. She is also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. She has appeared as a cultural commentator on BBC Radio, LBC-London, and on local radio programs across North America, and she served as a judge at the first Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film Festival at the 2003 I-Con, the largest SF convention on the East Coast. She is the author of The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride, and is an award-winning screenwriter. Read Johanson's recent articles below. For her AWFJ.org archive, type "MaryAnn Johanson" in the Search Box (upper right corner of screen).