Belfast

Belfast is one of the best movies by Branagh.

I completely fell in love with the script, its funny, its deep, turns a somewhat complex concept into a fair enough simple plot by the eyes of a child and what a performance by Jude Hill. He steals your whole attention since the beginning, authentic and emotional performance. Would it be too much to nominate him for an Oscar?

Other thing I loved was the black-and-white vintage look. This kind of movies are rarely made now but usually are very good (like Roma, Cold War or more recently The French Dispatch) and this one doesnt run away from it.

Overall I was glued to the screen from start to finish. If you havent seen it, what are you waiting for?

"Go. Go now. Don't look back. I love you, son." Granny (Judi Dench)

You can complain that Kenneth Branagh his filtered his 9-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) through his own rose-colored revery of the 1969 bloody ethno-nationalist uprising in Belfast, and you'd be right. However, like all of us remembering, that past is most pleasantly remembered through the lens of loving family struggle that binds.

While Branagh doesn't shy away from how the Northern Ireland Troubles between Protestants and Catholics was challenging all families, his endearing portrait of Buddy as a curious and sweet, albeit precocious, school boy for whom the biggest conflicts are figuring out how not to emigrate from Belfast because of the violence and connecting with the elusive little blonde who occupies the top of her class with Buddy.

One of the best movies of the year, Belfast gives scant references to Branagh's eventual rise to the top of his filmmaking class and emphasizes the effect a loving family can have on a small-town lad. Especially nostalgic is his interaction with his Granny (Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds), who best represent the benign Belfast world, the one so difficult to leave behind.

Branagh brilliantly chooses a sharp black and white for most of the film, as if to say, "Unlike the color opening, my story will be realistic in a cinematic sense that black and white usually represented in mid-20th century films." Adding a bunch of bad-boy Van Morrison tunes is a perfect surround-sound for the contradictions of Buddy's coming of age in a civil war that is both secular and religious.

The joy of this film is the 9-year-old's warm, nostalgic remembrance of a war-torn land. Belfast confirms the suspicion that those of us lucky enough to grow up in a loving family can survive war and even coronaviruses and become world-renowned filmmakers.

Belfast is one of Kenneth Branagh's best films, and that is saying much.

Kenneth Branagh delivers a beautiful, heartfelt film about a family in 1969 Belfast. Branagh's love for the town of Belfast is palpable. The cast is superb--especially, Caitriona Balfe, whose portrayal as a wife and mother, torn between staying in her native Belfast as religious and political violence escalates or moving to England for her family's safety, is heartbreaking.

A very solid if unremarkable coming of age film set during the Irish troubles of 1969.

This movie was very reminiscent of the 1987 film "Hope and Glory," only that film was much better. In fact, this movie reminded me a lot of the kinds of films that came out in the late 80s and throughout the 90s, accomplished and pleasing Oscar bait movies that gave not especially sophisticated adult film audiences products that were good and substantial enough to make them feel like they were seeing something important but safe enough to never make them feel challenged or threatened.

For me, what gave "Belfast" its heart was not the central story about a little boy and the parents who want to give him a better life than war-torn Ireland allows, but rather the side story about the enduring love between his grandparents, played by Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench. The best scenes in the movie were the ones featuring those two, and Dench's scene at the end is the one that lingered with me most. I was thrilled to pieces when both of them were recognized with Academy Award nominations.

Grade: A-

This film was funny, heartfelt, sad and scary all in one. Although it is based at the start of the troubles the film didn't fully focus on the terror those times caused. It was good to see the Northern Irish humour being portrayed. Belfast isn't just about bombs and religion.

For those distraught about the film being black and white. Seriously?! I didn't even notice after about the 30seconds. It brought the film to its time and gave it charm. In all a great, mostly, light film based around a horrible time in Belfast.