Movie Review: 'Belfast' Pleasant and Charming
Kenneth Branagh tells a gentle and pleasant story of childhood in 1969 Belfast, Ireland.
I am trying to figure out why I am so indifferent to Belfast. Perhaps indifferent isn’t the right word. I just didn’t connect with Belfast on an emotional level. I can appreciate the skillful creation of the movie, the delicate performances, the strong evocation of place and time, but something remains remote for me. I don’t feel the deep emotional connection to these characters and this story that I assume I am supposed to feel. But why?
Belfast tells the story of a Protestant family living in Belfast, Ireland in 1969. At this time, the conflict between Protestants and Catholics has reached a boiling point. Riots and street fights have begun breaking out and the family at the center of Belfast is caught in the middle. Buddy (Jude Hill), our child protagonist, and his family are Protestants who live peacefully in an integrated neighborhood with both Catholics and Protestants.
This places Buddy’s father, played by Jamie Dornan, and his mother, played by Catriona Balfe, caught in a fight where fellow Protestants want them to fight Catholics and their neighboring Catholics expect for them to defend the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the fighting between the two sides has had a negative impact on the local economy. Pa, as Dornan’s character is called, is forced to leave regularly to work in England while Ma tries to balance the books and keep her son’s from getting involved in the fighting.
Helping Ma back home are Granny (Judy Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds), a colorful pair who help Buddy with his homework while also helping him get closer to the girl of his dreams, a little blonde girl who also happens to be Catholic. There isn’t any real tension regarding her being Catholic as it isn’t revealed until the end of the story and by then other things have transpired to change Buddy’s life well beyond a childish crush.
A lack of tension is the biggest problem with Belfast. While we see fighting in the streets, our main characters are rarely seen in any sort of peril. Something about Branagh’s direction renders any little bit of danger in the story toothless. Colin Morgan plays the main antagonist in the movie, a Protestant who calls on Pa to fight alongside his fellow Protestants, but he’s never seen as much of a threat. Pa dismisses him and belittles his threat and the family has what seems like a very easy path to escape from this situation so tension dissipates rather quickly throughout Belfast.
Far too early in the story we are told that Pa has a job offer in England, a decidedly safer place than Belfast, and the tension is supposed to be from Ma’s desire to remain in Belfast around the people who they’ve known their entire lives. As it plays out, Ma appears to be stubborn and not thinking clearly as it seems very clear that leaving this violent corner of the world is really the only choice the family has. Balfe does her best to try and sell Ma’s notion of staying in Belfast as something important but her reasoning is undermined at every turn.
Jamie Dornan is not bad in Belfast but he is rather bland. He’s a picture of wokeness in a time when such clear pictures of right and wrong were rare. There doesn’t appear to be any flaw in Dornan’s character, he’s loyal and forthright, he’s made mistakes in his past that we are told about but he’s mostly just kind, thoughtful and devoted. He gambles on horses and that might be affecting the family financially but we never get any real sense that this has caused too much trouble.
Aside from the lack of tension, which probably comes from framing the story through a very small child, there are still plenty of good things about Belfast. The movie is charming, the black and white cinematography is first rate, and the occasional use of color, especially in scenes when the family goes to the movies, is a lovely choice that frames the outside world as filled with the life and color that is currently lacking in Belfast. Then again, framing Belfast as colorless and lifeless also serves to further undermine Ma’s motivation to stay in Belfast.
In the end, for a movie set in Belfast in 1969, Belfast is rather gentle and pleasant. The danger of the moment is hinted at but feels out of focus. When the family can comfortably take time to finish a thread about Buddy and the little Catholic girl he has a crush on, it’s hard to feel the urgency of their need to get out of town. Branagh prefers to paint Belfast as charming with the potential for violence as an inconvenience rather than an actual threat.
I don’t dislike Belfast, I do very much admire it, but I just did not connect with it in the way I feel I am intended to. Belfast arrived in theaters nationwide on November 12th, 2021.
About the Creator
Sean Patrick
Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.
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