Shown: 4 January 2023
Exminster Film Club Rating: 93%
- Date of release: 2021
- Running time: 1h 38m
- Director: Kenneth Branagh
- Writer: Kenneth Branagh
- Country: UK
- Language: English
- Links: IMDB Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic BBFC Film Website
Belfast Plot Synopsis
From lauded director Kenneth Branagh, and starring an acclaimed ensemble cast, Belfast is a personal and joyful story about the power of memory, set in late 1960s Northern Ireland. At the centre of the film is Buddy, a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.
Film Reviews
Taken all together, Branagh’s film is in its own special way like a cinematic equivalent of the Irish brogue that fills it: It’s lovely, it’s lyrical and it’s next to impossible not to be swept up by its charms.
Mike Scott
There’s only one trouble with his semi-autobiographical account. It’s so polished—so spirited, funny and skillfully calibrated—that it could be taken for a while as a crowd-pleaser and not a lot more. Sign me up for the crowd, though. This is surely the most pleasing film I’ve seen so far this year, but also the most affecting.
Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal