Saoirse Ronan will surely snag that Oscar nomination for Best Actress this January as the buzz for her performance in Lady Bird has reached even the local Twitterdom.
Two years ago, she received similar buzz for the movie Brooklyn, which was well-loved by critics and the Academy picked it as one of the Best Picture nominees and there are ample reasons why they gave it so much love.
The immigrants' tale in America has many predecessors already, even from the Irish point of view but it is the sheer force and gravitas of Saoirse Ronan's performance plus the authentic "Irish-ness" of many of its characters which makes the viewers feel empathy and actually care about what happens to them.
As for me, I couldn't take my eyes off Emory Cohen, the love interest of Saoirse in the movie. It's the best 'boyfriend' performance I've seen from an actor in years - he not only is very disarming, but he plays it with such coyness and sincerity, you end up rooting for him, even if his character is Italian-American.
There are many parallels to the Irish immigration experience to America to the Filipino immigration there, a hundred years later. I just wish our stories are as well-documented in film as the Irish experience has been.
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