And am I the only one who never felt she was actually in love with her husband ?
Nope. I felt like she was just getting swept along by his emotions and romantic manipulations. She definitely didn't seem excited when he proposed to her. I thought this is what the film was going for, thus making an even harder choice for her when she returned to Ireland and meets Jim, but then she goes back to the US and her husband quite easily and that's that.
The more I think about her, the stranger her character seems to me.
Brooklyn is another example of what I have felt for a long time ; that is to say, that the sexual repression of the past and the impossibility to live together or even get frisky before marriage could not possibly result in the sorts of pairings and relationships that we now deem to be romantically viable. In other words, and I may very well be dismally wrong about this, it would have been akin to impossible for a Eilis-Tony like couple to ever fall truly "in love" in the fullness of the term before they married back then. It is possible, perhaps likely, that their feelings for each other will grow deeper with time, but if you take the beginning of the marriage as a point of comparison, their feelings for each other could be what we would now call something like infatuation or romantic affection. Then again, I'm twelve so I'm probably talking rubbish.
In the sense of real life it's unusual for there to be people actively looking to ruin your life as there are in so many movies.
You have not met my exes.
My only problem with DH earlier review is I can't remember Ronans performance being mentioned and this film is delightful for her work here especially like I say because she is working with nice material at a low level of drama (sorry DH if my bad memory is misrepresenting you).
You're not. I did not mention her performance because, again, I generally care little about such things, and because it did not feel relevant to the point I was making. My write-ups only address specific issues and are not meant to be exhaustive.
This thing with her husband. She seems swept away with it all, a leaf blowing the wind and conveying that naturalistically is good work. The 50s for a lady weren't an era of agency and what her character achieves for herself is semi-heroic. I've seen complaints that she gets help from blokes but again that stretched this PC arguing into the modern context which, duh, this film doesn't belong in.
It is true that she achieves a lot. But it seems like you're saying « Well, she only achieved was it was reasonably possible for a woman to achieve on her own back then, which admittedly was not much. » which I think is an interesting way to take the discussion. A woman could have a romantically "successful" life but only to a certain degree and it would ultimately have to depend on the men. If that is what the film was going for, I find the realism, as disillusioning as it is, refreshingly honest. I also cannot help but be left a tad underwhelmed though.
This film is the cinematic equivalent of Sandy. I've wanted her to see it since I did. we could have turned to each other as the credits rolled and done a Maury Ballstein to each other "now that's what I'm talking about!"
Tush. Sandy is much better than this movie. Perhaps
Singin' in the Rain would be the more apt analogy.