MovieChat Forums > Brooklyn (2015) Discussion > OK, here's what a normal person would ha...

OK, here's what a normal person would have done

posted 8 years ago by LilyDaleLady
12 replies | jump to latest

I mean -- a normal young woman in 1950 with husband she just MARRIED in America. She would have gone back to Ireland (hey folks, they did have airplanes even back then) -- wore her wedding ring, and told everyone of her wonderful luck in getting an American husband! -- packed up her widowed mother -- brought mom back to the US -- and all lived happily ever after, with Tony in their new house on Long Island.

Problem solved. Movie -- 20 minutes long.

*****

BTW, I actually knew a couple -- my best friend's grandparents! -- who married secretly. She was of Scots ancestry, and he was an immigrant from Italy with a heavy accent. Their parents were not thrilled with them even dating. They met at college in the 1920s. They married secretly, just like Eilis and Tony, and hid it from family for about 2-3 years!

Why bother with this? They wanted to sleep together. And back then, nice people did not have pre-marital sex.

Also this was a "mixed religion marriage" -- she was Presbyterian, he was Catholic. That sounds like nothing today, but it was real intermarriage in 1924. People were upset.

Later, after graduation -- they got "pretend engaged" and had a full, formal church wedding. Parents accepted it. Kids were raised Presbyterian. They did not tell their children or grandchildren until the 1970s about the secret marriage!

[–] TxMike 8 years ago

Movies about normal people are dull. Eilis was not a normal person, as you point out.

..*.. TxMike ..*..

[–] Lava-Rocks 8 years ago

Ellis wasn't normal or happy, but why do the rest of us have to be subjected to her story?

Besides; the heroine in this story is called Ellis. As in Ellis Island. Birth place of the Hollerith card. Used to count immigrants by country of origin, gender and age etc. Is that a coincidence? I think not. But who cares? Who even notices these allusions? Nobody, because nobody is who cares.

[–] RobbieCalifornia 8 years ago

Her name in the film is Èilis, E I L I S.

Not Ellis.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Sorry but you are incorrect. Despite the pronunciation, it is indeed spelled "Ellis." It's that way in the original novel, and in the movie credits and subtitles it's also spelled that way.

[–] ChocolateButt 8 years ago

Nobody subjected you to anything. You chose to watch the movie, then come here and bitch about it.

"What race are you? If you don't tell me I'll just...assume the worst."

[–] dblondel 8 years ago

a normal young woman in 1950... She would have gone back to Ireland (hey folks, they did have airplanes even back then)

Maybe for people with money. Not for people who don't have a lot of cash.
Even as much later as the 1970s, my parents still traveled back and forth between America and Europe in ocean liners, because they couldn't afford plane tickets.

[–] CinematicallyC (5) 7 years ago

We debated this on our podcast. We could not figure out when exactly he became financially prudent to fly rather than boat. Thanks for posting this it definitely puts things in perspective!

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Indeed.

[–] lubin-freddy 8 years ago

Her behavior was perfectly normal and acceptable. And few people flew then, as the first 707 was six years away, and even then, it was quite expensive.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

[–] Prelude (1443) 7 years ago

Well I agree she should have told everyone from the start of her visit that she'd married, and she could have brought poor old widowed mom back with her.

But maybe she didn't want her mother with her in her new life? No matter how much she loved her mother, the woman and her selfish passive-aggression represented everything she wanted to get away from! She only finally woke up to that at the end, thanks to the shop-owner woman's barely veiled blackmail talk.

And about planes -- it was WAY too expensive to travel by airplane in the 50s. At that point it was still only affordable to wealthy people.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

You are just plain wrong about airplane travel. In the early 1950s it was not affordable for a lot of people, especially considering that Ireland was still a poorer country.

[–] Alerra (244) 4 years ago

They did have airplanes, but that wasn't the preferred method of travel in the early 1950s for the common person. Air travel was expensive, especially for one that had to travel across the ocean. This was the time of "Coffee, tea, and me" air travel, when flying was seen as a luxury for the rich and famous. It wasn't something for the ordinary Joe or Jane.

I read somewhere that transatlantic cruises outnumbered transatlantic flights up through 1956. I don't know for sure how accurate that fact is, but since that's around when the story takes place, it would have been perfectly reasonable for a woman of reasonably limited means (the Fiorellos weren't poor, but they certainly weren't rich either) to travel by boat.