Belfast is a very charming movie that unfortunately didn’t fully work for me, I’ll start with what absolutely worked and work our way down. For starters a lot of the performances were quite great Caitroina Balfe is quite great and gives a very emotional and raw performance, Ciarán Hinds (who was personally my favorite) did an incredible job of really capturing a portrait of a wise and hilarious grandfather who also gives great advice. Every single time he was on screen he stole the show and made the scene in question ten times more powerful, Judi Dench also did quite a great job as well. Jamie Dornan gave a decent performance but it really wasn’t anything truly incredible as he was honestly not given a whole lot to do, he showed up in a number of scenes and that was really about it. On a technical level Belfast succeeds really well, the filming and editing are both truly beautiful that captures the setting in such a mesmerizing way. Unfortunately what did not work was some of Kenneth Branagh’s direction he wants to make this a feel good movie which it does that pretty well, but then you remember when it’s taking place during a turmoil in the 1960s that left several people dead. I get the film is about a certain family but I do wish they talked a little bit more about what was going on. Sure they had the news stations talking about updates and there was the beginning (which I do think is one of the best scenes of the film). Finally there’s the ending which has a nice message but it’s not nearly enough, I’m not saying you can’t make a feel good movie during a time of war or disturbing events. But you have to make sure it doesn’t overfill which is unfortunately what happened here. Outside of that Belfast is a solid feel good movie that unfortunately did not do much for me, I do recommend checking it out as some people absolutely love this movie.
Belfast available in theaters and on all VOD Platforms!
7/10 B
Jerome Reviews... 