Movie Review - Belfast (2021)

This film won the People's Choice Award at the 46th Toronto International Film Festival. The past decade has proven that any film that wins this prize is likely to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. A lot of experts are predicting that this film will rack up a bunch of nominations at the upcoming 94th Academy Awards, and might end up winning the top trophy. After it premiered at Toronto, people were immediately comparing it to another title that was up for Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards and that's Alfonso Cuarón's Roma (2018). Both are essentially memoirs of the filmmakers. Both are presented in black-and-white for the most part. Both are set in the same relative time-period. Both involve social unrest in their respective countries.

The social unrest in Roma is more in the background, coming to the forefront only a couple of times for dramatic effect. Yet, this film, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh (Murder on the Orient Express and Thor), makes the social unrest more the centerpiece of the narrative. Roma was more about a woman dealing with her pregnancy. The social unrest wasn't something with whom she had to contend daily. This film is more about a family directly dealing with the social unrest, pretty much on a daily basis.

If you're a person who is from the United Kingdom, then that social unrest is something with which you'll be familiar. Anyone else might not be totally aware. If you've seen films like The Crying Game (1992), In the Name of the Father (1993), Hunger (2008) and '71 (2015), then you have somewhat of an idea. Most of those films though focus on the Irish Republican Army or IRA. This film is about the conflicts that led to the rise of that group.

This film could be seen as a prequel to those aforementioned films. Specifically, this film is about the 1969 Northern Ireland riots, which pitted the Catholics against the Protestants living there. Yet, this film doesn't really dig into Ireland politics to explain why these riots were occurring. It gets to a point where there are Protestants versus other Protestants. An explanation isn't necessary, as the film is mainly about how a family is going to weather these riots, either stay or go. It's also about a little boy's experiences, centering on his crush on a girl in his class.

As such, digging into Ireland politics isn't required, but, for someone who knows nothing of those politics or the issues at stake, it was difficult for me to connect to anything that was happening. The film is told mostly from the point-of-view of a child, so not digging into those politics makes sense, but sometimes that can be a cop-out. I wasn't a huge fan of Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit (2019), but that film is told from a child's perspective, but doesn't totally shy away from the politics and showing us why things were happening. Yes, Branagh has inserts of TV news broadcasts that help in that regard, but it's not the same as having the characters dig into it.

Branagh directs each scene in a way that makes each scene pop on screen. The cinematography is quite well done. His close-ups are at times striking as he often has characters staring directly at the camera with their faces filling the frame. He also has almost every shot playing with the depth of field and the mise-en-scene where he'll have objects or even people in the foreground, almost centimeters from the lens, while focusing on something happening in the background with a shallow depth of field or vice-versa. It makes all of Branagh's images striking.

The performances from the actors are all fine. I wasn't that impressed with Jude Hill who is the little boy at the center of this film. The true standout is Caitríona Balfe (Outlander and Ford v. Ferrari) who plays the mother to the little boy. Of all the characters, hers is the one that gets the true arc. She also gets a monologue that's really engaging and pulls you into her inner world, her fears and desires. That was the only thing with which I connected. Everything else fluttered away.

Rated PG-13 for some violence and strong language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 38 mins.

In theaters.