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Movie Review: Belfast

Mike Tyrkus

Written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, the film Belfast, is the filmmaker’s autobiographical coming-of-age story of a nine-year-old boy told amidst the tumultuous late 1960s.

Told from the perspective of Buddy, played with earnest bravado by Jude Hill, the film takes place primarily in the summer of 1969. Buddy and the rest of his Protestant family live in a tight-knit Belfast neighborhood that is unceremoniously torn apart when religious differences erupt into violence between previously content neighbors. As much as Buddy’s mother (Caitriona Balfe) and father (Jamie Dornan) try to protect him from the horrors of everyday life in Belfast, Buddy is subject to a full gamut of horrible experiences that no nine-year-old should ever have to endure. Yet, through it all he somehow manages to retain a more-or-less positive outlook on life and even the prospect of love at such a tender age.

The film’s emphasis on Buddy’s family is evident throughout and it is essential to the emotional core of the film, as well as its overall success. Buddy’s grandparents, played by Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds, as do his parents, hold a positive sway on the young man’s outlook of the world and that is evident in how endearingly they are all portrayed.

Caitriona Balfe, left, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Jude Hill and Lewis McAskie take in a film in a scene from Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast.” (Rob Youngson / Focus Features)

The exquisite black-and-white cinematography, with the ever-so-subtle emphasized scene shown in color, utilized by Haris Zambarloukos allows the film a poignancy that perhaps would have been missing had it been shot entirely one way or the other. A timeless soundscape provided by the music of Van Morrison firmly cements the film in its setting while the universality of the struggles of the characters allows the story to transcend its time period and become one that can be recognized and identified with by all.

Although there is a not-too-subtle reference to director Branagh’s foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (he directed the first Thor film in 2011) that feels a little like pandering to a certain extent, the film is overall, quite a wonder to experience, much like that felt by Buddy and his family as they attend the local movie house to take in the wonders of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). There is a solidly warm and earnest emotional center to Belfast that makes it a crowd-pleasing stunner of a film.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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