IMDb plot summary: A young boy and his working-class Belfast family experience the tumultuous late 1960s.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Starring Jude Hill, Lewis McAskie, and Caitriona Balfe.
Belfast is Kenneth Branagh's semi-autobiographical film about a young boy growing up in Belfast during the Northern Ireland conflict. We see his family pressured into taking sides and trying to decide if it's worth leaving Belfast to make a better life for themselves elsewhere. I'm not surprised this is one of Branagh's more acclaimed films, because it feels the most grounded in reality to me, and therefore something critics love and I don't. Toned-down Branagh just doesn't have much appeal for me. It's missing the theatrical flair that makes his other work so identifiable and instead becomes a run-of-the-mill coming-of-age movie that mildly interests me as an educational work but not at all as an emotional one. That being said, it's certainly not a bad film. It's done well, and it looks gorgeous, and all the acting is spot-on. It just leaves me a little cold. But I am not at all surprised that it's gotten so much love -- what I find dull about it is exactly what will draw others to it, and I'm glad the film exists, even if I have no interest in watching it again.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Belfast < Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Belfast > Asterix and Cleopatra
Belfast > Con Air
Belfast > Jimmy the Kid
Belfast < The Savages
Belfast < A Foreign Affair
Belfast < Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Belfast > Casino
Belfast > Thoughtcrimes
Belfast < Star!
Belfast < Forbidden Planet
Belfast < Cropsey
Final spot: #2007 out of 3607, or 44%.
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