1950s come to Coney Island, Saoirse Ronan filming “Brooklyn”

The 1950s are coming alive again in Coney Island, where filming is taking place on Colm Toibin’s novel Brooklyn.  Star Saoirse Ronan was all decked out last week in the style of the decade, as was her co-star Emory Cohen.

Brooklyn tells the story of a young girl who leaves Ireland for America, falls in love with an Italian plumber here and is forced to return home due to a family tragedy. A large chunk of the movie was shot in Co. Wexford before relocating to Coney Island to finish up.

Good thing Saoirse is busy these days.  She missed the Cannes Film Festival in France last week where her film Lost River premiered – and was promptly mauled by the critics. Saoirse has a co-starring role in the project, which marks the directorial debut of Ryan Gosling.  Reaction was so bad that those in the audience booed.

“It is colossally indulgent, shapeless, often fantastically and unthinkingly offensive and at all times insufferably conceited,” – this according to the film critic at the U.K. Guardian.  And those were some of the kinder words on offer.