You’re Buddy from Belfast 15, where everybody knows you.
In this semi-autobiographical coming of age tale set in 1969 Belfast, the time of the Troubles, Kenneth Branagh has crafted what I suspect is his most personal film. While it’s pretty good overall, it has it’s problems; I think the primary one is the screenplay which, while never exactly bad, is just very bland and never surprising. The movie purports to take on both the “coming of age” story and the story of the Irish Troubles but these are both stories that we’ve obviously seen done a hundred times and this movie simply has nothing new or even really moderately insightful to say about anything. It’s a movie entirely devoid of surprises and thus entirely devoid of dramatic tension. The script resolutely approaches every moment by asking “What’s the safest and least interesting choice here?” and then doing that. I’m also not really sold on Jude Hill’s performance as Buddy, the main character. I saw the other day that the studio actually put him forward for consideration for a Best Actor Oscar nomination and the very idea is laughable to me. He’s never really better than fine. Granted, the majority of kid performances rarely even get to that level, but he just doesn’t have the charisma necessary to hold a movie together. He’s in practically every scene of the film and he’s just not good enough for that. The movie also has a weird fascination with the American Western genre; I suspect this is taken from Branagh’s own childhood, because I’m not sure why you’d make it up. Which that’s okay as far as it goes, but then they evoke the Western genre at the end when the main character’s dad has to confront the villain of the movie, an extremist Protestant, and it really makes the movie’s climactic scene impossible to take seriously. I suppose there’s a case to be made that Branagh is depicting the scene from the perspective of Buddy, a child who is obsessed with Westerns, but still, it really pulled me out of the movie in an unfortunately comedic way.
All that said, there are things I liked about this movie. While the script is painted with broad strokes, the cast, Hill aside, does a good job breathing life into their stock characters. Ciaran Hinds, Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan and Judi Dench are all very good and they make their characters have some weight. I think Hinds gives my performance, but they’re all good. The film is also visually well done. The black and white photography is technically on point and the film’s use of color is often striking. A scene of Judi Dench watching a play of A Christmas Carol is particularly gorgeous in the way it uses color on the stage, reflected in Dench’s glasses. I initially thought the use of Van Morrison’s music in place of a traditional score sounded a bit gimmicky, but I ended up really liking it; the use of the songs is often right on point with the scenes they’re used in. And, look, in this age where it seems every movie needs to hit that two-hour-twenty mark, I really love that Branagh turned in an old-fashioned drama that clocks in at under an hour-forty. Honestly, that’s probably a big reason I liked the movie overall as well as I did; if this movie had been twenty minutes, or maybe even just fifteen minutes, longer I probably would have soured on it, but with its brief run time, there really isn’t time to get particularly annoyed at how cliched the movie is. I don’t want to be too negative about the movie, honestly; I somewhat feel the pull to overstate the things I didn’t like because of the rapturous praise the movie is getting this awards season, but, like I said above, it isn’t a bad movie at all, just a very flawed one. The moment to moment experience of watching the movie is fun because it’s brisk and has good performances and is well shot. It’s never anything but a good small drama and it probably doesn’t need to be anything but that. It’s worth seeing; if it was any longer, I might go the other way on that, but at just over ninety minutes, it’s worth it. It’s not a great movie, but it is a good one and I enjoyed it, for all the flaws of its pedestrian script. 3 stars.
tl;dr – with a pedestrian script that always makes the safest and most obvious choice at every turn, Belfast is still entertaining due to good performances and engaging visuals. 3 stars.