While not all novels are as enjoyable when made into movies, Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn, proves to be a success. Although the movie begins in a small town in Ireland on a dark, grim street, Brooklyn is anything but dark and grim.

Eilis Lacey, portrayed by Irish-born Saoirse Ronan, leaves her mother and her sister in Ireland in hopes to immigrate to the United States to live a better life and make something of herself. It does not take long for Eilis to fall in love in the U.S., but she decides to keep it a secret from everyone except her sister.

“At its heart, the film is devastatingly universal, packing a powerful emotional punch in its depiction of loneliness, dislocation and the helpless feeling of being exiled from everything you know,” Connie Olge said in a review on the Miami Herald website.

Eilis’ portrayal of the hardships immigrants experience when coming to the U.S. put the viewers into a perspective which we are not used to. It does not take long to invest your feelings into the movie.

After Eilis arrives in the U.S., she tries her hardest to fit in with the American culture around her. Eventually she meets a boy at an Irish dance, and it does not take long for them to fall in love. When tragedy strikes her family,  Eilis decides that she has to return to Ireland and be with her family.

After living a couple months back in Ireland, Eilis is forced to choose between not only the two countries, but two men that she falls in love with.

From sadness to anger, and frustration to excitement, the viewers are on a constant emotional roller coaster while following Eilis in her journey.