BELFAST (12A, 97mins) Drama, comedy. Starring: Jamie Dornan, Caitríona Balfe, Jude Hill, Judy Dench, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan
Director: Kenneth Branagh
BELFAST is writer/director Kenneth Branagh's very personal semi-autobiographical ode to his birthplace, a city he left behind as a youngster when his family moved to England at the start of the Troubles.
Nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) is Branagh's avatar for a vividly lensed, mostly monochromatic flashback to an idyllic childhood rudely interrupted by the turbulent events of summer 1969 in his north Belfast neighbourhood and other working class areas.
Before we get to that though, the picture opens in full colour with an up-tempo Van Morrison soundtracked montage of modern day Belfast sights and cityscapes, a bit like something out of a NI Tourist Board TV ad.
Perhaps it's just the responsible film-maker in Branagh keen to ensure that global audiences are primed with some contemporary context. This makes sense when you learn that the original vision for this movie involved sequences of the adult Buddy – presumably played by Branagh himself – returning home after years away, à la Cinema Paradiso, a key influence here along with Alfonso Cuarón's Roma.
In the end, due to Covid and other factors, Branagh was forced to 'zoom in' and focus on just the 1969 section of his screenplay: thus, the film quickly delivers an effective scene-setting sequence largely shot from Buddy's low-slung perspective, as an early evening of carefree childhood fun among school chums and friendly neighbours is suddenly, bewilderingly interrupted.
Rescued from a hail of stones and petrol bombs by his plucky 'Ma' (Caitríona Balfe), a terrified Buddy and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) are soon huddled under their kitchen table as a burning car explodes on the street outside and nasty sounding voices threaten to burn out and/or kill Catholic families if they don't leave the area.
As it happens, Buddy's family – also including his 'Pa' (Jamie Dornan) and paternal grandparents 'Pop' (Ciarán Hinds) and 'Granny' (Judy Dench) – are Protestants, but they have no truck with those putting in the windows of neighbours who "kick with the other foot", as his Ma quaintly puts it.
However, with the pavements outside Buddy's front door ripped up to form makeshift barricades and the British Army arriving to 'keep the peace' between the two denominations, it quickly becomes clear that such neutrality wont wash.
Local Prod hardman Billy Clanton (Colin Morgan) – though it really sounds like people are calling him 'Billy Clinton', which would have been a nicely ironic touch – tells Buddy's dad in no uncertain terms that "you're either with us, or you're against us".
It's a concept this precocious youngster is already familiar with from the US Westerns like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and High Noon which he devours along with weekly episodes of Star Trek.
Pa, Buddy's very own Lone Ranger, is away working in London as a carpenter for weeks at a time, so naturally he starts to worry about leaving his young family behind to cope with the growing tensions alone. His thoughts turn to making a better life for them elsewhere, but Ma fears the unfamiliar more than staying among 'their own'.
Buddy definitely doesn't want to leave his beloved Pop and Granny behind. And besides, he hasn't yet managed to ace enough tests to sit at the front of the class beside his brainy primary school crush, Catherine (Olive Tennant). Pop has been helping him on that front, though his guidance on how to conquer mathematical equations is unconventional to say the least.
North Belfast-bred stage and screen veteran Ciarán Hinds easily steals the film as this kindly grandfather figure, coaxing out the best of wide-eyed fledgling talent Jude Hill in their playful scenes together and also generating an authentic, lovingly bickering chemistry with co-star Judy Dench (whose 'Irish' accent is a law unto itself).
It's a great looking film artfully shot by Branagh and his regular collaborator, cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos, yet at times the writing feels frustratingly unfocused and oddly bland for being based on such intensely personal material.
Belfast is definitely at its best when we're deep in Buddy's amusingly innocent POV, negotiating new and unfamiliar worlds like religion, women and his parents' marital struggles. Other than the occasional bursts of violence, it's mostly the bright, clean-scrubbed world of nostalgia, which occasionally bursts into exciting full colour/Technicolor every time this movie-mad kid gets to enjoy a trip to the cinema or theatre.
Indeed, as well as being a homage to Branagh's home city, Belfast is also very much a cinematic tribute to his formative love of film: even for its flaws, you probably shouldn't bet against the writer/director at least getting another Oscar-nod for revisiting both in such a heartfelt manner.
Rating: 3/5
:: Belfast will be in cinemas from January 21.
