BELFAST

Review: A nine-year-old boy and his working-class Belfast family experience the violence in the late 1960s.
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Actors: Jude Hill, Lewis McAskie, Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds, Josie Walker, Nessa Eriksson, Mairead Tyers, Caolan McCarthy, Ian Dunnett Jnr, Michael Maloney, Lara McDonnell, Chris McCurry, Drew Dillon, Olivia Flanagan, Samuel Menhinick, Scott Gutteridge, Victor Alli, Turlough Convery, Gerard Horan, Colin Morgan, Conor MacNeill, Vanessa Ifediora, Olive Tennant, Oliver Savell, Sid Sagar, John Sessions and Mark Hadfield
Year: 2021
Genre: Biography, Drama and History
Conclusion: 5/5
The one thing I enjoyed about this film was that Kenneth Branagh didn’t show or mention anything about the politics involved. We saw it all from the little boy’s story. I thought this did show how important his grandparents were to him. When Kenneth Branagh was asked in an interview why he had done the film in black and white his reply was because that is how he remembered the past. This did remind me of the film Roma (2018) as it was in black and white, both are names of cities, are semi-autobiographical, are written and directed by the director, are set around 1970, are Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. In Belfast, I thought Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds were very good. I was totally impressed with Jamie Dorman and thought he gave such a fantastic performance. I don’t know how they managed to find Jude Hill but thought he just shone throughout the whole film. I enjoyed seeing Turlough Convery in a completely different role as the vicar. All the actors were brilliant and I could name them one by one. Watching this I never actually thought that I was watching actors as they were all so real. Four members of the production were born in Belfast, Ciaran Hinds, Kenneth Branagh, Josie Walker and Jamie Dornan. Ciaran Hind left Belfast in the mid-70s for England, to escape ” The Troubles”. I very much enjoyed the music by Van Morrison. I very much enjoyed the script which just had the right amount of humour in. I laughed in the film and also came out of the cinema with tears in my eyes of both sadness and joy. I found the whole film very moving. At the Bafta Awards in 2022 this won for Outstanding British Film. At the Academy Awards in 2022 this won one Oscar award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay).