Published October 10, 2024

Everything’s coming up Saoirse Ronan for me lately. I don’t mind.

The universe served up “Brooklyn” to me a few days after “The Outrun” opened, and a few more days after her name came up in “My Old Ass.” The timing was good. The time spent was well worth it. I was more ready for “Brooklyn” in 2024 than I was in 2015.

Nine years after its release, I am assuming that if you are reading this, you either know about it or have access to plenty to read about the plot, so I won’t spend words on that. My initial takeaway is that what impressed me most about Ronan in “Brooklyn” is her ability to play a character who is alone, afraid, homesick. Vulnerable.

Putting your trust in people is a leap of faith, but sometimes you seem to have little choice. Some of the people we put our trust in know that, which makes it all the more risky.

I needed to get lost in the story

During the movie’s 112 minutes, I didn’t focus on Ronan’s acting, which she made easy for me. I got lost in the story of Eilis Lacy, the young woman she plays.

Ronan was Eilis Lacy.

I cried a lot. That’s been happening lately when I watch and read woman-centered storytelling. You’ll have to watch it with me someday to know which parts of “Brooklyn” had me teary-eyed, but you might be able to guess.

One of my favorite scenes early was when she meets Tony at a dance. Can she dance? Can Tony? He’s asking, and with a blend of confidence and a kindness she (and we) will come to know better, makes it a slightly safer proposition for her than it could have been.

Doesn’t matter. Secret is to look as though you know what you’re doing.”

Charming. Disarming. Revealing.

I could relate to her response.

“I wish someone had told me that years ago.”

Girl, same.

A period piece, perhaps with ellipses

We live in a different world now than in early 2015. In that sense, I do wish I had seen it then. Philip Kent’s review for the British Film Institute touches on this. “In some ways ‘Brooklyn’ feels like a movie that’s not just about, but also from, a more innocent age.” Kent is not a woman in a strange new country across an ocean from her home in 1951. Nonetheless, he wrote that the movie is “female-led and all the stronger for it.”

“Brooklyn” wants to take us back to 1951. I think we also have to travel back to 2009, when Colm Tóibín wrote the novel that inspired it. So much the better if we have any nostalgia for 2014 and 2015, when the movie was made and then released.

Remembering where those years fall on the timeline of my transition, my own vulnerability would likely have turned me into a puddle.

I had my own secret

As I took each new step, I resolved to look as if I knew what I was doing. No one with eyes and a nonthreatening swagger like his asked me to dance, but I had asked myself to take a leap of faith in the world around me.

I did not see it turning as ugly as it has, but amazingly, a big part of me still has faith. While the world burns, while it drowns, while its sustainability continues to be in jeopardy, do people really want to blow up their futures over the small minority of trans people around them?

I’ve never been to Brooklyn. I will always be glad “Brooklyn” was safe to lose myself in.