Belfast

Grade: B-

Belfast is a black-and-white movie. There is a little bit of color in the beginning and end, and when characters are at the cinema, watching a film on the big screen, the movie within the movie is in color. That was particularly powerful for me. I was reminded of when Roger Ebert said “we live in a box of space and time – movies are its windows.” Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed Belfast. It takes place in 1969, and is seen from the point of view of a thoughtful precocious boy named Buddy (based on Branagh himself). A persistent narrative backdrop here is the religio-political uproar between the Catholics and the Protestants. The soundtrack is almost exclusively Van Morrison songs.

I rattle off these facts to illustrate how varied and eclectic this movie is. It has so many different elements and shifts gears so often, that chances are not everything will hit the bullseye. I’ve never been a war or history buff, so the nitty gritty business about the turmoil between religions – and its economic consequences – failed to keep me engaged.

But I will tell you my favorite scene. Buddy comes home with an item he snagged from the store during a looting. His old-fashioned Irish mother knows right away he shoplifted, and is having none of it. He has barely gotten to the front door when his mother yells down from an upstairs window “stay right there, young man.” Literally three seconds later, we see her at the front door to meet him and give him what for. It’s impossible that she could travel all that distance in 3 seconds, but from an emotional and psychological standpoint, it feels accurate, as Belfast is seen through the eyes of the boy, after all. Our parents always did seem to instantaneously materialize when we were in trouble.

Belfast is too short to be insufferable, and is actually pretty easy to digest in its hour and 38 minute running time. It is well-made. Judi Dench is in it. Did I mention the music, by a treasure in the world of classic rock? Nothing is belabored too much – it’s just disjointed, and because of that, conclusions and payoffs don’t feel earned.

I feel like I’d be beating up a puppy by trashing Belfast, but even so, I didn’t hate it. It contains excellent things, and an almost equal amount of uninteresting things. I will grant that it doesn’t have that heavy-handed “movie ego” where it’s obvious it thinks highly of itself, like it’s the next big classic. I never felt it trying too hard, but because of its unevenness, numerous moments didn’t land for me like they should have.

Grade: B-