Sundance Review: John Crowley’s Gorgeous & Bittersweet ‘Brooklyn’ With Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson & Emory Cohen

Home is where the heart is, and love, longing, and grieving for the departed fragments of our lives we can never return to are lovingly realized in John Crowley’s exquisitely crafted and beautiful “Brooklyn.” Based on the novel by Irish author Colm Tóibín, and delicately adapted by Nick Hornby, “Brooklyn” tells the story of Eilis Lacey, an Irish immigrant who travels to America in the early 1950s for a more prosperous life. Living quietly in a small rural Irish town, opportunities are scarce, and Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) feels she has little choice when a unexpected chance to move abroad at the behest of a vicar presents itself. But the unplanned adventure to America is a sudden one, and leaving behind her beloved sister (Fiona Glascott), fragile mother (Jane Brennan), and the warm familiarity she came of age in is devastating for the trepidatious young girl.

As she crosses the Atlantic, the experience is traumatizing, and when she arrives on unknown shores, Eilis is...