Brooklyn, the tale of a young Irish immigrant in 1952 New York, torn between love, country, and coming-of-age, made waves this past week at the Sundance Film Festival. After a successful premiere filled with laughs and tears and a subsequent bidding war, the film has been picked up by Fox Searchlight Pictures, Variety confirms.

The drama is helmed by Boy A director John Crowley, and adapted from the Colm Toibin novel by Nick Hornby, who takes his previous work with 2009’s An Education to new and reportedly dynamic levels.

Brooklyn stars Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) in the lead role, with Emory Cohen (The Place Beyond the Pines) and Domhnall Gleeson (About Time) as her love interests on alternate sides of the Atlantic. Critics have not held back in lauding Ronan for her ability to handle the heightened and torrential emotions of youth.

This was Fox Searchlight’s second distribution deal at the festival, after picking up the modern day coming-of-age tale Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. The company plans to release Brooklyn later this year– possibly inserting it into award season talks. Fox Searchlight Presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utely commented on the acquisition, saying “this film is the kind of classic love story that audiences yearn for and is so often missing from today’s world.”