Movie Brooklyn: Better than the book?

John Crowley's 2015 movie Brooklyn, extremely closely based on the Colm Toibin novel and with a smart screenplay by novelist Nick Hornsby - a powerful two-barreled literary phenomenon here - was in my view actually better than Toibin's novel, a rarity. Though it's not entirely the kind of movie I would see (or book I would read for that matter), a somewhat over-the-top romance with a thin plot line, what was a little disappointing in the novel opens up very well on screen: the humor of the dialogue comes much more to light in the very well written and acted encounters, in particular the boarding-house dinner conversations with Julie Walters stealing the show. And the sweetness and innocence of the two main characters, especially Saoirise Ronan in an Oscar-likely lead as the Irish immigrant Ellis really come to life beautifully throughout the film. What felt a little unsettled at the end of the novel is much more complete and gratifying on film (spoilers here, but they won't be much of a surprise in any event): We can really see by the end, why, after Ellis/Ronan came so close to moving back to her small village in Ireland and settling in with the gentle and thoughtful publican's son, she close to return to the US and begin a life with young, hard-working, devoted plumber: Of course it's a better world in the States, which she realizes after her return to Ireland - more open, diverse, with more opportunity, acceptance, joy, and space. Everything's more extreme - the climate and changing seasons serve as a metaphor for that - but we can see by the end of the film why US immigrants virtually never move back to their homeland. In a sense, the movie as a paeon to all that's great about American (not just Brooklyn tho that's where she begins her life in America - I never like this as a title for the book, or the movie), and of course it makes us think about immigration today and the anger and bitterness toward so many immigrant groups - the movie does not touch on this, but it could fuel both sides of the debate. My quibbles would be with the way over-the-top score - please just shut up and let the characters act! - and I thought the street scenes and styles looked a decade older than the apparent setting (based on various references to new movies) of 1952.