Brooklyn

On a whirlwind tour of seeing movies and TV shows from a few years ago; I recently saw first 2 seasons of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, got through both Olivia Coleman and Imelda Staunton's reigns playing Queen Elizabeth II on the Crown, and watched Oscar-winning movies the Green Book, the Help, Hidden Figures, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (I actually felt confused about this Quentin Tarantino film and felt it dragged for a long time, and didn't really feel good about Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio coming out of it), I just saw 2 movies headlined by the talented Saoirse Ronan, "Little Women" (directed by Greta Gerwig, I almost wrote Greta Garbo because she's so often a correct response on Jeopardy!) and Brooklyn, a movie she didn't have to share the screen with other great actresses like Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, and Laura Dern, basically all the March sisters (Jo, Amy, Beth, Meg) and mom Marmee, she could just depict the life of an Irish immigrant. She wonderfully displayed the trials and tribulations of immigrants coming to the U.S., the hope, the fear, the passing through immigration, the homesickness, the struggling at a new job. Ironically, in both movies Little Women and Brooklyn, I felt like the love triangles Saorise's characters got involved in hindered the plot: Jo March and Eilis Lacey were both such strong characters who had a great story arc of determination, starting from nothing, trying to make it in the world......and then they got distracted by men, and in an unrealistic way. Eilis especially was this girl from nowhere in Ireland coming to America on a ship, and within a year became romantically involved with a nice Italian boy, then had to go back to Ireland due to her sister's untimely passing but then met another gentleman Irish man who wanted to marry her? Both where charming and handsome and ideal husband types? I felt that whole "who should I be with, I have feelings for both" really took away from the story, suddenly she became the Bachelorette: Brooklyn/Ireland edition. And yea, Timothy Chalamet as Laurie in Little Women was just too much. I was in and out of sleep while watching the movie but for some reason he seemed to be right in the middle of everyone: Jo liked him, Amy loved him all his life, and even Meg wanted to dance with him one night....it's "Little Women," not "Everyone has the Hots for Laurie." 

I resonated with Eilis Lacey's story as an immigrant in many ways coming to a new land (being pulled out of school in China to go to a new land, new school, new faces, new language), and I do actually remember feeling a little sick flying from Shanghai halfway around the world with my grandpa, not having been on an airplane before. And seeing strangers greet me at the airport after we passed through customs, then ACTUALLY getting sick in the car back to our apartment in ghetto Chicago and throwing up. But I think Brooklyn resonated with me on behalf of my mom, who came to the U.S. by herself as a student trying to find a better life than she had at home. She had married my dad by then and gave birth to me, but she was the pioneer, the trailblazer who first came to America by herself. I can only imagine that plane ride to America, not knowing a single person in America and having just some savings to start in a new world, in a world without internet, with cell phones, with just letters to write home, leaving family (and me!) all behind. That must be one of the loneliest feelings in the world, and not sure at all that it's the correct move to make, but having faith that eventually it would work out. And she did all of this without prospect of a breathtaking love story in store like in Brooklyn! There are plenty of movies and books about immigration, and some Chinese movies might more closely mirror my mom's story, but the immigrant spirit traverses all cultures. It's inspiring and I wish I had the courage to do that; I can't even muster up the courage to tell the waiter they got our order wrong at the restaurant sometimes.