A Kenneth Branagh film with no Dutch angles?!? I’m shocked.
An emotional resonant and cute picturesque account told through the eyes of a child of living in Belfast during a time of so much turmoil. Branagh’s semi-autobiographical story is saturated in childhood wonder and fear. The religious tensions are simply a backdrop to the problems facing Buddy in his life, such as trying to nail a maths test to impress a girl.
The biggest compliment I can give this film is how great the character interactions are, it’s the reason this film works. Helmed by incredible performances from all but especially Jude Hill, who’s magnificent and holds his own in many long close-ups really pulling you into the film, except when he’s over-directed. Jamie Dornan also surprised the hell out of me, making his character one of the most likeable people in the world. Considering how much I enjoyed Dakota Johnson in The Lost Daughter and him in this do I have to watch 50 shades now?!?
The absolute star though was Caitriona Balfe. She’s steals every scene she’s in and delicately delivers the turmoil of the decisions and responsibilities being placed on her to protect her children in such a tumultuous time. It’s in these performances that the film finds its place, the film lets you into this family’s house and won’t let you leave without some tears in your eyes.
However Belfast suffers from it’s painfully simple story. While the character interactions are what makes the film special, none of them individually have any arc throughout and the ending feels incredibly abrupt. The film is very surface-level in its exploration of politics, which considering its setting feels a bit of a waste. Granted this is a exploration of this time period from the perspective of a child but there’s numerous scenes with other members of the family that could’ve went a bit deeper.
The film oddly wasn’t that impressive to look at. The black-and-white cinematography is serviceable enough to the story, with the films and shows in colour feeling very baity to the Academy. The production design was not great though, the film felt awfully staged for most of the runtime, and this comes down to the look of the town. Scenes outside of this seemed to have more life to them, like the dancing scene, but when the film was constricted to the streets it felt as bland as the black-and-white colouring. There was some lovely use of camera movements however especially in the first 10 minutes.
Belfast was not the Oscars best picture front runner like I expected, it was a joyous and emotional story of family but nothing to get in the streets and riot about.
★★
