John Crowley has revealed that he’s still unsure about how critically-acclaimed film Brooklyn ended, despite him directing the film.
The 46-year-old, who directed the Oscar and BAFTA nominated film that stars Carlow native Saoirse Ronan as the lead role of Eilis, has now admitted that he’s undecided whether Eilis made the right decision at the end of the movie.
In a video interview with Deadline.com, John was asked by Brooklyn star Julie Walters if Eilis made the right choice, and he replied, “”Well, who knows? Who knows?”
Unsure: John is undecided | VIPIRELAND.COM
“For me, it’s a profoundly important piece of writing, I think – not just about Ireland, but about America,” he said.
The Cork native explained that he thinks Brooklyn is the first movie about emigration that has properly told the story as a whole and how it resonates with so many people.
“Because it’s the first story that sort of tells the complete journey of emigration. By sending a young woman – which is also what’s fresh about it – to America, and then taking her back to Ireland –Â which is the sort of masterstroke – where you see how much she’s changed and how she views Ireland differently.”
Telling a story: John thinks Brooklyn is the first movie about emigration to tell the story as complete journey
“It’s one tiny story, which I think has huge scale because it’s one version of a story that happened thousands upon thousands upon thousands of times as we know.
“And also, one of the things I find striking about when we were doing homework on it at the time, doing research on it is that the nature of emigration from Ireland, especially in the Fifties, was largely solitary.
“It was just often young men and women heading off on their own with a suitcase,” he added.
