15 Most Over-Rated Movies Of The 21st Century

Based on award-winning Irish writer Colm Tóibín’s novel of the same name and adapted for the screen by fellow author Nick Hornby, Brooklyn tells the tale of a young female Irish immigrant who leaves the Emerald Isle to start a new life in 1950s New York. Hailed as charming and profoundly moving by its fans, its star, 21-year-old Saoirse Ronan, has rightfully been praised for her fantastic performance as émigré Eilis but beyond its beautiful cinematography and gorgeously retro costume design, it’s a pretty bland, run-of-the-mill romantic drama.

Moreover, though director John Crowley clearly wasn’t going for gritty realism and the focus is on the personal rather than the political, Eilis’s immigrant experience is an easy one – she lives in a beautiful Brooklyn brownstone-cum-boarding house, a job is arranged for her in a posh department store despite her lack of experience, a benevolent priest finances her bookkeeping classes – without discrimination or anti-Irish sentiment, which considering the current focus on the plight of contemporary immigrants and the more historical reality, seems a rose-tinted, crowd-pleasingly palatable portrayal of immigration.