Belfast is a muddled movie. Jude Hill (who plays a kid Ken Branagh of-sorts) is growing up during the Troubles in the Northern Irish capital with his close-knit family, going through all the strifes of any first-world child that include finding a first love, saying goodbye to grandparents, and finding a lifelong passion for something (in this case, movies). What I wanted from the film, however, was less Cinema Paradiso meets British Sitcom, and more intimate drama that takes the events of the Troubles a little more seriously.
Showing the events of a film such as Belfast through the eyes of a child isn't an inherently poor decision, after all, Kenneth Branagh has spoken much about how the film mirrors much of what he experienced back in the 1960s, but the storytelling technique does come with a rather large problem for us audiences. The problem being: the film glosses over large, dramatic events that would be pivotal to any other story but are downplayed so much here, that Buddy (our protagonist) might as well be growing up in any country- for the events the city is going through make no difference.
Yes, we do get a very Hollywoodized face-off between Buddy's hard-grafting father (Jamie Dornan) and what seems to be a local troublemaker by the name of Billy Clanton, but when the action strikes, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Pick your side, movie. Either go with the heartfelt comedic spin (which largely seemed to be proving popular with almost everybody except me) or the dark, cold truth of what it was really like growing up in the Troubles.
The intimacy of the film was completely lost on me. I have a hard time connecting with any Kenneth Branagh film but this time it was most frustrating as it was so obvious he wanted me to care about this family and their conflict over whether to leave Belfast for a life in Australia or England. But just as I begin to feel interested in their dilemma, we crack a few jokes and another Van Morrison montage sequence kicks-in. The film tries to do it all, therefore compromising the best moments by cutting away far too early so the feeling is lost.
Yet, Belfast has turned out to be a crowd-pleasing hit. It will grab some impressive awards for the Supporting Cast and no doubt inspire other established filmmakers to venture into their own pasts and conjure up more average monochrome pastiches- wishing that they were as good as other movies before them. For a movie with so much potential, this one really stung, when it should've been far far better.
Showing the events of a film such as Belfast through the eyes of a child isn't an inherently poor decision, after all, Kenneth Branagh has spoken much about how the film mirrors much of what he experienced back in the 1960s, but the storytelling technique does come with a rather large problem for us audiences. The problem being: the film glosses over large, dramatic events that would be pivotal to any other story but are downplayed so much here, that Buddy (our protagonist) might as well be growing up in any country- for the events the city is going through make no difference.
Yes, we do get a very Hollywoodized face-off between Buddy's hard-grafting father (Jamie Dornan) and what seems to be a local troublemaker by the name of Billy Clanton, but when the action strikes, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Pick your side, movie. Either go with the heartfelt comedic spin (which largely seemed to be proving popular with almost everybody except me) or the dark, cold truth of what it was really like growing up in the Troubles.
The intimacy of the film was completely lost on me. I have a hard time connecting with any Kenneth Branagh film but this time it was most frustrating as it was so obvious he wanted me to care about this family and their conflict over whether to leave Belfast for a life in Australia or England. But just as I begin to feel interested in their dilemma, we crack a few jokes and another Van Morrison montage sequence kicks-in. The film tries to do it all, therefore compromising the best moments by cutting away far too early so the feeling is lost.
Yet, Belfast has turned out to be a crowd-pleasing hit. It will grab some impressive awards for the Supporting Cast and no doubt inspire other established filmmakers to venture into their own pasts and conjure up more average monochrome pastiches- wishing that they were as good as other movies before them. For a movie with so much potential, this one really stung, when it should've been far far better.