Belfast

After spend­ing a few years punch­ing out lack­lus­tre stu­dio block­busters, Ken­neth Branagh has opt­ed for a more per­son­al project in Belfast, a dra­ma based on his own expe­ri­ences grow­ing up in the North­ern Irish cap­i­tal amid flar­ing ten­sions between Catholics and Protestants.

Nine-year-old Bud­dy (Jude Hill) enjoys his sim­ple life in the city with his Ma (Caitríona Balfe), old­er broth­er Will (Lewis McAsk­ie), Granny (Judi Dench) and Pops (Cia­rán Hinds), while his Pa (Jamie Dor­nan) is fre­quent­ly away work­ing in Eng­land. When Pa returns, it becomes clear that the sit­u­a­tion in the city is esca­lat­ing, with Protes­tants inflict­ing intim­i­da­tion and vio­lence on Catholics in their own neigh­bour­hood. When local gang lead­ers attempt to recruit Pa into their cam­paign of ter­ror, he resists and inad­ver­tant­ly places a tar­get on his back.

Shot in black-and-white (with occa­sion­al flash­es of colour, such as in the film’s open­ing and when Bud­dy vis­its the cin­e­ma with his fam­i­ly) it seems as if Branagh may have been influ­enced by the suc­cess of Alfon­so Cuarón​’s Roma, which sim­i­lar­ly drew on for­ma­tive mem­o­ries to cre­ate a por­trait of a fam­i­ly fac­ing
upheaval.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly the impact here is rather more drea­ry; it feels like a short­cut for evok­ing a sense of nos­tal­gia that adds pre­cious lit­tle to the film itself. Unin­spired, too, are the rather gener­ic adven­tures Bud­dy under­goes: he devel­ops a crush on a class­mate; he falls in love with an old­er girl who is a bad influ­ence; he is spell­bound by a trip to see Chit­ty Chit­ty Bang Bang, in a direct nod to Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cin­e­ma Paradiso.

Branagh paints with the broad­est strokes and his film is all the worse for it. It doesn’t have any­thing unique to say about this tur­bu­lent time in North­ern Ireland’s his­to­ry which is still cause of con­tention to this day.

It doesn’t help that Hill is a jar­ring lead whose act­ing feels over­wrought; Balfe and Dor­nan are much more agree­able pres­ences, but giv­en decid­ed less to do as Branagh is so caught up in this child’s eye per­spec­tive. A scene in which Dor­nan per­forms ​‘Ever­last­ing Love’ should have an emo­tion­al kick to it, but for rea­sons unknown Branagh lacks the courage to let the sequence play out in its entirety.

The sub­ject mat­ter is clear­ly close to Branagh’s heart, yet the final prod­uct is a dis­ap­point­ing­ly opaque and grat­ing melo­dra­ma which ends up clos­er to pas­tiche than ten­der mem­oir. In an effort to cre­ate a crowd-pleas­ing sto­ry of youth­ful exu­ber­ance in the face of adver­si­ty, the direc­tor seems afraid to think big, and Belfast suf­fers for it.

This sto­ry about grow­ing up amid the onset of The Trou­bles should be more emo­tion­al­ly and polit­i­cal­ly potent than it is. Instead, it’s a care­ful, uncon­tro­ver­sial (and there­by unre­mark­able) film that fails to exert any last­ing impact after the cred­its roll.