Life in black and white seems more colourful and vibrant in writer-director Kenneth Branagh’s wondrous coming-of-age drama, drawn from the film-maker’s vast well of childhood experiences in 1960s Belfast.
Sincerely dedicated to the people of the Northern Irish capital – “For the ones who stayed. For the ones who left. And for all the ones who were lost” – Branagh’s most personal film unfolds from the perspective of a nine-year-old rapscallion called Buddy (played by luminous newcomer Jude Hill), who we first see romping around the streets with his pals, brandishing a home-made wooden sword and using an upturned dustbin lid as a shield.
Principal characters in Branagh’s script are referred to simply by their familial ties to Buddy – Ma, Pa, Granny and Pop – tapping into an undercurrent of charming childhood innocence that insulates the boy from the harsh reality of barricades being hastily erected at the end of the street or a local supermarket being looted during a riot.
Indeed, when the prospect of leaving Belfast for good solidifies, Buddy is most troubled about leaving behind his school crush, a girl called Catherine, who repeatedly scores top marks in teacher Miss Lewis’s tests of the children’s times tables.
The simple arithmetic of Branagh’s crowd-pleasing film adds up to a beautifully crafted valentine to a city in the grip of devastating change and a resilient and warm-hearted people, who mine humour in adversity.
“The Irish were born for leaving,” an aunt tells Buddy’s mother by way of a bittersweet farewell. “Otherwise the rest of the world would have no pubs!”
Buddy (Hill) and his family – Pa (Jamie Dornan), Ma (Caitiona Balfe) and older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) – live in a predominantly Protestant district of north Belfast, cheek by jowl with Catholic neighbours.
Granny (Dame Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds) live a few streets away.
Billy Clanton (Colin Morgan) and his comrades target Catholic houses in Buddy’s neighbourhood, claiming they are “lookin’ to cleanse the community a wee bit”.
Hostilities result in family members going through barricade checkpoints and local men patrolling night-time streets with torches.
For Pa, it is an unthinkable opportunity to transplant the clan to Australia or Canada: “An escape route”.
Distinguished by Haris Zambarloukos’s monochrome cinematography, Belfast relies on a terrific ensemble cast led by the exuberant Hill to paper over slight narrative shortfalls in a rose-tinted script drizzled with nostalgia.
Balfe’s fearful matriarch is the film’s beating heart and she powerfully conveys the emotional turmoil of a family’s forcible displacement from their home.
Branagh’s delicate touch results in a sprightly running time that leaves us hankering for more.
(12A, 98 mins) Drama/Comedy/Romance. Jude Hill, Caitiona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Dame Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds, Lewis McAskie, Colin Morgan, Lara McDonnell. Director: Kenneth Branagh.
Released in Ireland: January 21st
Our rating: 9/10
