movie review of belfast

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, black writers week.

Now streaming on:

“Belfast” is unquestionably Kenneth Branagh ’s most personal film to date, but it’s also sure to have universal resonance. It depicts a violent, tumultuous time in Northern Ireland, but it does so through the innocent, exuberant eyes of a nine-year-old boy. And it’s shot in gentle black-and-white, with sporadic bursts of glorious color.

In recalling his youthful days in an insular neighborhood in the titular city, Branagh has made a film that’s both intimate and ambitious—his “ Roma ,” if you’ll forgive the inevitable comparison to Alfonso Cuarón ’s recent masterpiece. That’s quite a balancing act the writer/director attempts to pull off, and for the most part, he succeeds. It’s hard not to be charmed by this love letter to a pivotal place and time in his childhood, and to the people who helped shape him into the singular cultural force he’d become. Long before the dedication that plays in front of the closing credits—“For the ones who stayed. For the ones who left. And for all the ones who were lost.”—we can feel Branagh’s wistful heart on his sleeve.

And yet, because we’re witnessing the events of the summer of 1969 from the perspective of a sweet child named Buddy—Branagh’s stand-in, played by the irrepressibly winsome Jude Hill —there can be an oversimplification of the upheaval at work, as well as an emotional distancing in the way the film is shot. We see and hear things the way Buddy does: in snippets and whispers, through open windows and cracked doors, down narrow hallways and across the cramped living room, where “ Star Trek ” always seems to be on the TV. ( Haris Zambarloukos , who has shot several of Branagh’s films including “Cinderella” and “Murder on the Orient Express,” provides the evocative, black-and-white cinematography.) When a Protestant mob charges down his block as he’s playing make-believe in the middle of the street, trying to root out the neighboring Catholic families, the trash can lid he’d been using as a toy shield suddenly becomes a vital piece of protection against flying rocks.

This is the constant push-pull that serves as a through-line in “Belfast.” It’s a film that frequently feels at odds with itself, resulting in equal amounts of poignancy and frustration. Ultimately, though, the sincerity on display wins you over. You’d have to be made of stone otherwise, especially in the simple, quiet moments when Buddy learns valuable life lessons to the strains of Van Morrison . (Yes, the words feel cheesy as I’m typing them, but gosh darn it, that kid is adorable.) It’s a lovely touch that the girl Buddy has a crush on—a pig-tailed blonde who happens to be Catholic—also happens to be the smartest student in class, and the way he woos her inspires fond laughter.

Given Branagh’s longtime stature as an actor, it’s no surprise that he’s drawn warm, authentic performances from his top-tier, perfectly chosen cast. Within this modest, working-class, Protestant setting, Buddy views his parents as movie-star glamorous—larger-than-life as the actors in the pictures he yearns to see each weekend at the local movie house. Known to him (and to us) only as Ma and Pa, his mother ( Caitriona Balfe ) is elegant and feisty, while his father ( Jamie Dornan ) is charismatic and kindhearted. Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds have an effortless chemistry as his grandparents, teasing each other mercilessly from a place of deep love and affection and a lifetime of commitment—to each other, to this place. The scene in which they transition breezily from giving each other a hard time to dancing in the living room, Pop serenading Granny in her ear as he holds her close, is perhaps the film’s highlight.

It’s a brief respite from the growing danger that’s surrounding them, disrupting the feeling of camaraderie that’s connected families on this block for decades, regardless of their religious or political beliefs. Buddy struggles to understand The Troubles, as they’d come to be known, and entreats the grown-ups he trusts to enlighten him. These exchanges may seem cutesy but they hammer home the senselessness of the violence that tore this region apart for so long. They also affirm once again what astonishingly subtle actors Dench and Hinds are; the way they find nuance and heartache in simple platitudes is a marvel to behold. (And speaking of Marvel, Branagh inserts a brief but clever reference to his own role as a filmmaker shepherding along the MCU.)

Within the steady hum of the threat Buddy and his family face is an impossible decision: Do they stay in this neighborhood where they’ve lived their whole lives, where everyone knows everyone, or do they move somewhere safer and start over? Pa’s work has been taking him to England for weeks at a time as he tries to pay off his debts—maybe the whole family should just join him there? Or perhaps a city that’s idyllic but far away, like Vancouver or Sydney? The achingly romantic final shot signals their choice in a way that hits harder than any of the nostalgia that came before it.

"Belfast" will be playing in theaters starting November 12th.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Hummingbirds

Travis hopson.

Trigger Warning

Robert daniels.

Glenn Kenny

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Ultraman: Rising

Simon abrams.

Film Credits

Belfast (2021)

Rated PG-13 for some violence and strong language.

Caitriona Balfe as Ma

Judi Dench as Granny

Jude Hill as Buddy

Jamie Dornan as Pa

Ciarán Hinds as Pop

Lara McDonnell as Moira

Gerard Horan as Uncle Jack

Kenneth Branagh

Cinematographer

Haris Zambarloukos
Úna Ní Dhonghaíle
Van Morrison

Latest blog posts

“This Is The Life, Isn’t It?” Martin Mull: 1943-2024

Kevin Costner: The Last of the Cornball American Directors

Leaving A Mark Behind: Kevin Costner on Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

The Hard Way, Or My Way? RIP Bill Cobbs (1934-2024)

an image, when javascript is unavailable

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘belfast’: film review | telluride 2021.

Writer-director Kenneth Branagh looks back to his childhood in Northern Ireland during a period of intense religious and political conflict.

By Stephen Farber

Stephen Farber

Share on Facebook
Share to Flipboard
Send an Email
Show additional share options
Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest
Share on Reddit
Share on Tumblr
Share on Whats App
Print the Article
Post a Comment

With Belfast , Kenneth Branagh shifts gears rewardingly from his Agatha Christie adaptations to a far more personal film about his childhood in Northern Ireland. Set in 1969 during the height of the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics, the feature mainly steers clear of politics to focus on family drama instead. I would guess that Branagh drew inspiration from John Boorman’s masterful 1987 film about his childhood during World War II, Hope and Glory . That is a high bar to match, and Branagh doesn’t quite reach it, but he brings off moments of humor and pathos that leave a lasting impact.

Filmed in black-and-white with a few bursts of color (more about that in a moment), the picture opens with a quiet domestic tableau that suddenly explodes in violence. Our protagonist, 9-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill), tries to fathom what is happening to disrupt his life. As far as he knows, his Protestant family has always lived side by side with Catholic neighbors, but this August morning forces him to see the world in a different way. The core family unit consists of Buddy, his older brother (Lewis McAskie), his mother ( Caitriona Balfe ) and his father ( Jamie Dornan ), who travels frequently to England for construction work. His grandmother and grandfather, superbly played by Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds , also live nearby.

Full credits

Venue: Telluride Film Festival Distributor: Focus Features Production companies: Northern Ireland Screen, TKBC Cast: Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, Jude Hill, Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds, Lewis McAskie, Lara McDonnell, Colin Morgan Director-screenwriter: Kenneth Branagh Producers: Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas Director of photography: Haris Zambarloukos Production designer: Jim Clay Costume designer: Charlotte Walter Editor: Una Ni Dhonghaile Music: Van Morrison Casting: Lucy Bevan, Emily Brockman

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Crunchyroll to release ‘demon slayer: kimetsu no yaiba infinity castle’ in theaters as film trilogy, ukraine war in karlovy vary focus as oleh sentsov meets czech president before ‘real’ world premiere, box office: ‘inside out 2’ wins with $57.4m as ‘quiet place’ prequel scores record $53m start and ‘horizon’ bombs, box office milestone: ‘inside out 2’ crosses $1 billion globally in record time, viggo mortensen on respecting audiences, how scripts are key “unless i’m broke,” new ‘lotr’ films, orson welles to steven soderbergh: karlovy vary curators on hollywood’s “kafkaesque” cinema.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

A Quiet Place: Day One Link to A Quiet Place: Day One
Inside Out 2 Link to Inside Out 2
Daddio Link to Daddio

New TV Tonight

Star Trek: Prodigy: Season 2
Grace: Season 4
Down in the Valley: Season 1
The Great Food Truck Race: Season 17
SPRINT: Season 1

Belfast Reviews

It is the mix of that tone and the fantastic filmmaking within it that elevates it from a lovely film to a gorgeous piece of cinematic history that is sure to please all audiences.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2024

While it is admirable how the director achieves all this without relying on superfluous artistic pretensions, the film is not entirely successful in capturing the complexity of the sociopolitical conflict... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Dec 5, 2023

Belfast is a simple story about complex times. Those looking for a deeply political film will not find it; instead, it is a tender piece about family and place. Branagh’s most personal film is his best in a very long time.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2023

Belfast has its moments – most of them featuring Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds as Buddy's grandparents – but the film grates as inauthentic and contrived.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2023

A cinematic treat. Kenneth Branagh’s personal story here brings you into The city of Belfast to experience every bit of culture & history. It’s movies like this that remind me WHY I LOVE going to the movies.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Belfast is infused with Branagh’s love of film and film history.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Though it plays it safe with the subject matter, Belfast is a beautifully shot and authentically uplifting movie that explores how important the things and people you love can be during a time of crisis.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2023

Belfast, at its heart, stands as a brilliantly performed, delicately written family drama that is a delight to watch.

Equal parts funny, heartwarming, and deeply tender—Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast is an emotionally compelling masterpiece full of refinements.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2023

Sir Kenneth Branagh constructs a perfect poetic tribute to his hometown about a period of his childhood that could’ve easily become another story about The Troubles. Instead, it’s only one faction of his nostalgia filled with joy, humor, and consequences.

Full Review | Feb 21, 2023

Horrendously twee

Full Review | Dec 30, 2022

Movies shape a great deal of Buddy's life, and by extension what we see, which excuses (whether on purpose or not) the most unbelievable and trite parts of the story. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Oct 29, 2022

[Branagh’s] vision is a joyous celebration and a refreshing critical eye of the family and the community where he grew up. A film that is brimming with those wholly mindful moments that remind you what makes life worth living.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 21, 2022

Belfast is cinema at its most magical and moving – a compassionate ode to childhood full of passionate performances from its exceptional ensemble cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

What Branagh fails to understand is there is a difference between filtering an observed experience through a child's point-of-view, and treating the viewers like they were children.

Full Review | Aug 29, 2022

A beautiful and emotional film that is inherently moving, Branagh tips the scales to the cheesy.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2022

That idea of family burns at the heart of “Belfast”, an earnest, sincere and utterly irresistible movie that had me in its grip from start to finish.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 16, 2022

Branagh employs a number of Van Morrison songs to lay the nostalgic charm on and even if some of them are anachronistic, it works.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 2, 2022

A sweet, neat and light but still vivid and soulful snapshot of growing up amid swelling uncertainty.

Full Review | Jun 25, 2022

A portrait with emotional filters from a filmmaker defined by his city's history... Branagh feels proud of his childhood experiences in Belfast, of the scars they left and the hearts they broke. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 15, 2022

‘Belfast’ Review: What’s Black and White and ‘Roma’ All Over Again?

Kenneth Branagh returns to his roots with this wee memoir, which borrows perhaps a bit too much from Alfonso Cuarón's art-house coming-of-ager.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

‘The Imaginary’ Review: What’s a Pretend Friend to Do When His Human Creator Outgrows Him? 2 days ago
‘I Am: Celine Dion’ Review: The Canadian Diva Has Never Seemed Stronger Than She Does in Prime’s Revealing Doc 2 weeks ago
‘Flow’ Review: Latvian Animator Gints Zilbalodis Follows Mesmerizing ‘Away’ With an Endearing Cat’s Incredible Journey 2 weeks ago

(L to R) Caitriona Balfe as "Ma", Jamie Dornan as "Pa", Judi Dench as "Granny", Jude Hill as "Buddy", and Lewis McAskie as "Will" in director Kenneth Branagh's BELFAST, a Focus Features release. Credit : Rob Youngson / Focus Features

Until watching Kenneth Branagh ’s wistfully autobiographical “ Belfast ,” I don’t think I realized that one of Britain’s greatest living actors — a talent who’s embodied everything from Henry V to Hercule Poirot, Kurt Wallander to Laurence Olivier — had been born in Northern Ireland. Maybe that’s because his family got out and moved to Reading, England, when he was 9 years old, just as the Troubles were coming to a boil, which spared him the accent and what could have been a premature end.

That escape makes it easy to guess on which side of the nationalist divide the Branaghs found themselves (hint: the reunification-minded Catholics wanted to cut ties with England, while the loyalist Protestants clung tight to its bosom). Though the conflict has been depicted to the point of exhaustion on-screen — typically as an escalating cycle of senseless brutality, complete with preachy “violence begets violence” sermon — “Belfast” avoids many of the clichés in favor of a more personal look back, through child’s eyes. The affectionate cine-memoir is rendered all the more effective on account of young discovery Jude Hill and its portrayal of a close-knit family (Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench and stay-put grandparents) crowded under one roof.

Popular on Variety

His execution might not always be the most original, but Branagh is a gifted filmmaker with an instinct for connection. Years onstage have taught him how to move and manipulate an audience, and those instincts make this a far more accessible coming-of-age story than Cuarón’s — which, it should be said, was less about the kids than their indigenous nanny, serving as a late-life homage to an underappreciated second mother. Branagh goes for a more populist approach, relying on sentimentality and the sound of Van Morrison (eight familiar songs, one new) to trigger the desired emotions.

Where “Roma” built to the Corpus Christi Massacre, keeping the worst of the uprising out of frame, “Belfast” opens with a bang (following a brief, full-color tour of modern-day Belfast): Aug. 15, 1969, mere weeks after the moon landing and the day the Northern Ireland riots touched Branagh’s neighborhood. Transitioning neatly to black and white, the camera cranes above a contemporary wall mural to reveal the council estate where Buddy (Hill) and his family live in a rented row house. The 9-year-old rounds the corner to see a mob of anti-nationalist Protestants gathering at the end of his street. They’ve come to torch the Catholic houses (at the time, the two groups were still integrated in certain areas), and Buddy stands frozen in their way, holding a garbage pail lid as a makeshift shield.

It’s a stunning opening, making it easy to understand why such an incident would mark a child for life. Buddy finds it confusing, and so do we, as all this business of Catholics and Protestants (plus an early scene in which Buddy goes to church) makes it sound like the Troubles are about religion, not allegiance to the crown. Spewing fire and brimstone from the pulpit, Buddy’s Protestant minister commands his congregation to choose the right path — between good and evil, heaven and hell, he means, but the bewildered boy sees it as a metaphor for the choice facing his family.

His pa (Jamie Dornan) already works remotely, traveling to England for a wage barely adequate to keep a roof over his family’s head. The tax man is constantly calling (if memory serves, that’s one of the reasons the United States declared its independence from England, though this family doesn’t see the burden as cause to secede), but Buddy doesn’t quite understand such grown-up things.

Ma (“Outlander” star Caitríona Balfe) does most of the parenting in her husband’s absence, and Branagh presents her as both resilient and uncommonly beautiful — an elegant Cate Blanchett type among the extras’ puffy, working-class faces. What mother is not a goddess in her son’s eyes at that age? Buddy looks up to his elders with adoration, and it’s charming to watch his interactions with each of them, scripted and played in a slightly artificial way, where heavily accented characters wait their turn to talk, volleying the conversation back and forth as they might onstage.

As Pop, Hinds helps Buddy with his math homework and advises the boy on how to get a pretty Catholic classmate’s attention (Olive Tennant plays Catherine). Dench’s Granny eavesdrops on their conversations and gives the boy coins with which to buy sweeties, while neighborhood girl Moira (a memorable Lara McDonnell) talks him into robbing the local candy shop. There are consequences to pay for that, as Ma invites the policeman in to teach Buddy a lesson. The boy beams every time Pa tells him, “Be good, and if you can’t be good, be careful” — a line that assumes a different edge, now that acts of terrorism threaten innocent lives.

Through it all, there are movies: “High Noon,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “One Million Years B.C.” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” — the latter two shown in color, the joy of discovery illuminating the characters’ black-and-white faces. Seen on TV, the Westerns speak to what’s happening in the streets, such that “The Ballad of High Noon” plays out over a climactic standoff, when Buddy and Ma are held at gunpoint during a riot. Through Buddy, Branagh also remembers seeing Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” performed onstage, and we’re led to understand that though his talent flowered far away, the seeds of his career were planted there in Belfast, amid such tough soil.

Reviewed at Telluride Film Festival, Sept. 4, 2021. (Also in Toronto Film Festival.) Running time: 97 MIN.

Production: (U.K.) A Focus Features release of a TKBC production, in association with Northern Ireland Screen. Producers: Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas.
Crew: Director, writer: Kenneth Branagh. Camera: Haris Zambarloukos. Editor: Úna Ní Dhonghaíle. Music: Van Morrison.
With: Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan, Jude Hill.

More from Variety

Abc news executive editor stacia deshishku exits, price chart for leading subscription video streaming services: updated with new max prices, youtube tv needs more than the nfl to combat cord-cutting blitz, more from our brands, tyla performs ‘jump’ with gunna, skillibeng after best new artist win at bet awards, 7 fresh hotel openings and renovations hitting new england this summer, caitlin clark and fever bring road show to sellout crowd in phoenix, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, orphan black: echoes’ creator anna fishko weighs in on [spoiler]’s big return, verify it's you, please log in.

Search Please fill out this field.
Newsletters
Sweepstakes
Movie Reviews

Belfast review: Kenneth Branagh's drama is soft-focus coming-of-age nostalgia

The film made its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.

It's a tricky proposition to try to show war and conflict through a child's point of view — and trickier still, maybe, when the story is as personal as Kenneth's Branagh 's Belfast , a dewy-eyed dramedy drawn from his experience as a little boy living through the earliest days of the violent ethno-nationalist divide that would leave his homeland bloody and battered for decades to come. The result feels like a film filtered less through real life than the rosy lens of sentiment and memory: a soft-focus Irish fairy tale bathed in love and blarney and a whole lot of warbling Van Morrison.

His stand-in here is a scrappy 9-year-old called Buddy (Jude Hill), a happy-go-lucky kid circa 1969 whose playground is the terraces and alleys of his working-class neighborhood — the same streets where his bickering, improbably glamorous Ma and Pa ( Caitríona Balfe and Jamie Dornan ), older brother Will (Lewis McAskie), and doting grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds) were born and raised and hope to die. Life there looks like a Celtic Norman Rockwell painting: neighbors helping neighbors, kickball in the road, John Wayne on the television and afternoon tea.

But the splintering schism between Catholics and Protestants has begun to turn, and it explodes one day in a Molotov cocktail of crime and opportunity — a sudden burst of anarchy that leaves half the windows on the block smashed and the locals deeply shaken. Dornan's laconic Pa, whose work takes him away for weeks at a time, insists they'd be safer somewhere far-flung in the Commonwealth like Sydney or Vancouver; Ma (a fierce, lovely Balfe) hates the idea of leaving every comfort of home for some faraway place where no one knows their names. Buddy mostly wants to eat chocolate and dream about the moon landing and make some small progress on his school crush, a studious little blonde in pigtails.

Branagh, the vaunted actor-writer-director whose long list of credits includes everything from Thor and 2015's live-action Cinderella to the upcoming Agatha Christie redux Death on the Nile , shoots it all in classic black-and-white, aside from a few calculated bursts of color. And he clearly cares for his actors, from veterans Dench and Hinds to the cherubic, towheaded Hill. But the nuances of his script also come, disappointingly, in black-and-white: so widely, brightly drawn that what should be touching (loyalty, family, first love) often just registers as maudlin, and what should be terrifying (an increasingly militant neighbor, an ugly smash-and-grab grocery-store riot) seems either cartoonish or oddly removed.

There are already so many excellent chronicles of the era — from films like Hunger and In the Name of the Father to books like Patrick Radden Keefe's celebrated Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland — that it's hard to know quite where to slot Belfast . As a firsthand account of the Troubles, it feels woefully distanced from those brutal realities; as a coming-of-age biography, it's frustratingly broad. Branagh's genuine affection and nostalgia for his subject suffuse the movie; if only the misty romanticism of his story could match it. Grade: B-

Belfast Review

Kenneth branagh writes and directs a touching coming-of-age drama based on his own tumultuous childhood in belfast..

This is an advanced review from the London Film Festival. Belfast opens in the US on Nov. 12 and in the UK on Feb. 25, 2022.

Having plundered Shakespeare, Disney, Marvel, and most recently Agatha Christie for material, director Kenneth Branagh heads closer to home for new movie Belfast, crafting a film about his childhood in Northern Ireland, which played out as sectarian violence was tearing the region apart. The result is Branagh’s most personal film to date, and one of his very best.

Belfast begins in the present, the sun shining as Van Morrison sings, and we’re presented with a whistle-stop tour of Northern Ireland’s capital. The only sign of trouble/The Troubles is a mural featuring masked men, which the camera pans above as color turns to black and white, and we’re transported to a street in the center of the city on Aug. 15, 1969.

Kids are laughing and kicking a ball, or fighting with makeshift swords and shields, the pictures presenting an idyllic vision of childhood. But a blast of mortars and firebombs breaks that spell, as a violent mob invades the street and orders all Catholics out of what they’ve deemed to be a Protestant neighborhood, the perpetrators adding “if you talk to the police we’ll be back for you too.”

Confusion and chaos briefly reign, then in a flash everything changes. Barricades go up, tanks and armed soldiers patrol the streets, and freedom is suddenly a thing of the past. It’s a startling opening sequence, and one that sets an ominous tone for what’s to follow.

Yet while that tension simmers beneath the surface throughout proceedings, the bulk of Belfast is far gentler, being a coming-of-age tale very much based on Branagh’s youth. His celluloid surrogate is Buddy – played with a combination of mischief and smarts by newcomer Jude Hill – a normal 9-year-old who loves his family, football, and films. And we view this changing world through his eyes, metaphorically, and sometimes literally as Branagh frequently stations his camera at a kid’s eye level, to truly place us in Buddy’s shoes.

What's the best film Kenneth Branagh has directed?

The youngster tries to make sense of what’s happening by eavesdropping on his Pa ( 50 Shades of Grey ’s Jamie Dornan) and Ma ( Outlander ’s Caitriona Balfe), but they don’t have the answers. Pa’s building work takes him away from the family for weeks on end, and when he’s home, Dad finds himself torn between doing what he deems to be right, and protecting his family from the horrors that now surround them. Meanwhile, Ma is struggling to make ends meet, drowning in debt, hiding from the rent man, and feeling like she’s raising her children alone.

It’s through their plight that Branagh tackles the political, religious, and financial plights faced by both his own family, and the households they lived alongside. There are times when these scenes slip into melodrama, especially when money becomes the subject of their arguments. But the writer-director also uses sentiment as a weapon, most notably during Buddy’s scenes with grandparents Pop (Ciaran Hinds) and Granny (Judi Dench).

These are the film’s quietest moments, with the child asking for help with his maths homework, or advice for how to impress the girl he’s crushing on. And the grandparents are beautifully played by the actors, with Hinds delivering life lessons and homespun wisdom with real warmth and charm. But they are also where Branagh vents his frustration with the ever-worsening situation. “There’s only one answer” Buddy states mid-way through the movie. “If that were true” comes the response from Pop, “people wouldn’t be blowing themselves up all across town.”

Aside from the object of his affections, Buddy’s other obsession is cinema, inspiring some of the film’s most autobiographical scenes. A trip to see Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC clearly helps the lad through puberty, while Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ignites his imagination, the film’s color breaking through Belfast’s stark black-and-white palette. A festive theater visit is a glimpse at things to come, while Buddy’s beloved Thor comic is a sly nod to Branagh’s MCU future.

New Fall Movies 2021: 40 Films to Look Forward To

TV also helps him navigate life, though not grim news broadcasts about “the explosive situation in Northern Ireland,” which Buddy ignores in favor of playing with toy cars. Rather, it’s the westerns he watches to learn something of the ways of the world, including The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and High Noon, though the latter foreshadows the film’s climax in heavy-handed fashion.

That finale drives the family to a potentially violent crossroads, but beyond condemning the campaign of intimidation that engulfed the city – represented by Colin Morgan’s terrifying Billy Clanton demanding “cash or commitment” to the cause – Belfast avoids taking sides, and works hard to remain even-handed. So when Catholicism is said to be the religion of fear, Branagh follows that proclamation with a Protestant priest delivering a sermon that’s pure fire and brimstone. His words terrify poor Buddy, but also inspire one of the film’s funniest moments.

It’s these episodic slices of life that truly elevate Belfast. From dancing in the street and cooking an “Ulster Fry” to playing Subbuteo and opening presents on Christmas morning, they are glimpsed memories that Branagh clearly treasures, beautifully photographed by the filmmaker’s long-time cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos.

His inspired use of focus, wide shots, and depth of field bring each remembrance to life in spellbinding fashion. All the while, the music of Van Morrison – including hits like Warm Love, Jackie Wilson Said, Days Like These, and Dark Side of the Street – capture the mood, underscore Buddy’s optimism, and successfully marry Branagh’s words with Zambarloukos’s visuals.

Belfast is a love letter to both a city, and the ghosts of Kenneth Branagh’s past. There’s clearly soul-searching going on as he re-examines events from his childhood, and how they affected those he loved, and the decisions they made. Yet that story is told with a lightness of touch that belies the serious subject matter, making for a sometimes sad, frequently tender, and often joyous affair that celebrates family, film, and the people and places that turned Branagh into the man he is today.

More Reviews by Chris Tilly

Ign recommends.

Belfast skirts politics with a child’s-eye view of the Troubles

Kenneth Branagh renders his youthful memories in black and white.

by Alissa Wilkinson

An image of a family in black and white, reacting with delight to a movie in a movie theater.

One Irish woman jokes to another during Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast that Irish people were born for leaving, because otherwise the world would have no pubs. “All the Irish need to survive,” she continues, “is a phone, a pint, and the sheet music to ‘Danny Boy’” — key ingredients for a long evening of sentimental longing for the ones you’ve left behind, or maybe the ones who left.

By those standards, Belfast is a very, very, very Irish movie. There are pints, phones, and an off-key rendition of “Danny Boy,” plus a lot of Van Morrison and dancing. But most of all, there’s Branagh’s misty-eyed and mostly successful nostalgia. It’s become a lazy critical cliché to declare that a film is a love letter to a city or to the past or to cinema, but in this case it’s inescapable, and Belfast succeeds in passing that love along to us.

That’s a testament to the depth of feeling with which Branagh infuses the film, shot almost entirely in black and white . Though set at the start of the Troubles, the 30-year period of often violent ethno-nationalist conflict often characterized as a religious confrontation in Northern Ireland, Belfast assiduously avoids taking sides. This is not a political movie. The focus remains trained on a family making a monumental decision and the community around them — just like Branagh’s family did when he was a boy.

Why there are so many black-and-white movies in 2021

Branagh’s stand-in is a 9-year-old boy named Buddy (Jude Hill), who lives with his Pa and Ma (Jamie Dornan and Caitríona Balfe) and older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) on a working-class street in Belfast. Pa works as a joiner in England, but comes home every few weekends; his parents (Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench) live nearby, as do many cousins and neighbors. From the shopkeepers to the housewives to the men down at the pub, they’ve all known each other all their lives. They’re all, in essence, family.

But it’s 1969, and trouble is on the horizon. One day, as Buddy and the other children are playing on the street, Protestant loyalists show up and begin violently targeting the homes and shops of Catholics with bricks and bombs. It’s terrifying, and it’s just the beginning. A makeshift barricade constructed at the base of the street serves as a checkpoint, and adults worry to one another about what is happening to their home.

Buddy and his family, like many on the street, are Protestants. But they have many Catholic friends, people they’ve known their whole lives, and for the most part, the neighbors resent the intrusion.

A line of soldiers in riot gear stand behind a man and a boy. There’s a looming figure in the foreground.

And of course, Buddy is 9. Politics and unrest are interesting only insofar as they intrude onto the normal activities of life, like catching the attention of the prettiest girl in class or learning strategies to get partial credit on his math homework from his grandfather. Yes, Buddy and his brother get strict instructions from Pa not to run any errands or perform any tasks that the loyalists ask them to do. They discuss with their cousins how you know if someone’s a Catholic or a Protestant, and they complain about having to go to church. But they’re much more excited about watching The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance on TV or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the theater than whatever’s going on in the news; when the unrest does appear on the small household TV, it’s only the adults who pay attention.

By focusing on Buddy’s memories — which are his own memories — Branagh aims to do what his characters want: to focus on one another and their community, rather than on basically unwinnable political fights. Branagh (and Buddy) use the common shorthand of talking about it as a religious conflict, between Protestants and Catholics, but the reality was much more profound, stemming from historical and cultural discord that runs very deep in the country. Nationalists, who saw themselves as independent Irish (and Catholic), and Unionists, who saw themselves as part of the United Kingdom (and Protestant), went to war with one another not over theological differences but over conflicts in how they saw their identity as Irish people and long-running hostility stemming from British rule of Ireland.

The Troubles went on for 30 years, until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Thousands of people died in those decades. But political agreements can’t entirely dispel old disputes and grudges. Periodic low-simmering incidents since then show that those sentiments are still alive and well. And problems created by Brexit have reignited the violence once again.

Brexit’s Irish border problem, explained

Yet people have to keep living. Belfast ’s framing, from the perspective of a child, lets Branagh mostly brush past the politics. He focuses instead on his (admittedly incredibly beautiful) parents, his loving grandparents, the conversations he overheard and only half understood. The portrait of Buddy’s street we get from the film feels kind of obviously smoothed over, the rough corners rubbed off in memory. Belfast is mostly a happy film, and sometimes a bittersweet one, and only occasionally a truly tense one. It’s at its best in those joyful moments.

A young boy sits on a sofa between two older people, his grandparents. The image is in black and white.

Is that good? Depends on your perspective. There’s an argument to be made that Belfast , coming out in 2021, ought to be bold, take a stance, draw a line from 1969 to today. It’s a little frustrating to watch the movie and know that by sidestepping politics, it probably substantially increased its chances during a crowded awards season.

Then again, the cardinal rule of evaluating a movie is to start not with what you wish it was, but what it actually is, and whether it’s good at being that thing. Belfast is not a film with a message about politics, but about home and family and where you find both. (Small wonder that Branagh, who left Ireland when he was 9, moving with his family to Reading, England, found himself writing the film in just eight weeks while on lockdown in London.) And the skill behind it beguiles and charms, much as a good story over a few pints at the pub might do. That kind of longing and love is all over Belfast , and right about now, it feels like catharsis.

Belfast opens in theaters on November 12.

Most Popular

Web3 is the future, or a scam, or both, hawk tuah girl, explained by straight dudes, why the supreme court just ruled in favor of over 300 january 6 insurrectionists, the supreme court just made a massive power grab it will come to regret, the supreme court just lit a match and tossed it into dozens of federal agencies, today, explained.

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.

More in Culture

Hawk Tuah Girl, explained by straight dudes

Looking for your next great read? We’re here to help.

A new book tackles the splendor and squalor of reality TV

Julian Assange’s release is still a lose-lose for press freedom

The whole time? The Boys has been making fun of Trumpers the whole time?!

Why do all the world’s best athletes do Subway commercials?

Delete your dating apps and find romance offline

There is no one weird health hack

What, if anything, is AI search good for?

What Kenya’s deadly protests are really about

How the UFC explains the USA Audio

Kevin Costner, the American Western, and the American ego

UK Edition Change

UK Politics
News Videos
Paris 2024 Olympics
Rugby Union
Sport Videos
John Rentoul
Mary Dejevsky
Andrew Grice
Sean O’Grady
Photography
Theatre & Dance
Culture Videos
Fitness & Wellbeing
Food & Drink
Health & Families
Royal Family
Electric Vehicles
Car Insurance Deals
Lifestyle Videos
UK Hotel Reviews
News & Advice
Simon Calder
Australia & New Zealand
South America
C. America & Caribbean
Middle East
Politics Explained
News Analysis
Today’s Edition
Home & Garden
Broadband deals
Fashion & Beauty
Travel & Outdoors
Sports & Fitness
Sustainable Living
Climate Videos
Solar Panels
Behind The Headlines
On The Ground
Decomplicated
You Ask The Questions
Binge Watch
Travel Smart
Watch on your TV
Crosswords & Puzzles
Most Commented
Newsletters
Ask Me Anything
Virtual Events
Betting Sites
Online Casinos
Wine Offers

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

Belfast film review: A film about the Troubles that isn’t about the Troubles at all

The celebrated director’s twinkly-eyed childhood memoir chooses not to reckon with reality, article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our the life cinematic email for free, thanks for signing up to the the life cinematic email.

Dir: Kenneth Branagh. Starring: Caitriona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds, Colin Morgan, Jude Hill. 12A, 98 minutes.

Kenneth Branagh ’s Belfast is a film about the Troubles that, when you dig into it, isn’t so much about the Troubles at all. A twinkly-eyed childhood memoir – and rigorously fashioned to be an Oscar frontrunner – it’s set during the cold months of 1969, when outbursts of sectarian violence across Northern Ireland marked a change in the air. It’s now recognised as the very start of a three-decade conflict, leaving scars still far from healed.

The Troubles drive the central conflict of the film, as two parents – played by Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan – make the most difficult decision of their lives: do they leave Belfast and the only home they’ve ever known, or risk the safety of their two young sons? They are a Protestant family living in a majority Protestant area, but coexisting peacefully with their Catholic neighbours. But, to some, not taking a side is the same as taking a side. Fire and shattering glass do not discriminate.

There is a lopsidedness, though, to Belfast ’s point of view, which comes out just as tilted as the Dutch angles that Branagh’s become so reliant upon as a director. We experience events as its protagonist does, youngest son Buddy (Jude Hill, funny and innocent) serving as a stand-in for Branagh’s own childhood self. The film, then, jolts with excitement every time Buddy bundles himself into the seat of a local auditorium, and gazes up in wonder at a screening of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or a production of A Christmas Carol . Belfast , above all, exists to detail how its director would one day become that multi-hyphenate titan of the British arts, as famous for his exuberant takes on Shakespeare as he is for hamming it up in the Harry Potter films.

While Belfast largely plays out in black and white, Buddy’s early exposure to the arts is rendered in ecstatic explosions of colour. When coupled with the only other use of colour – in a tourist reel of a prologue accompanied by the bluesy beat of Van Morrison – these sequences suggest that the arts of Branagh’s youth allowed him to look directly into his own future. Belfast feels precious in that way, but also a little slight. As a monochrome memoir, the film superficially shares much in common with Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma , which revisited the director’s childhood in Mexico City through the eyes of his family’s one-time domestic worker. But the souls of these films feel worlds apart. Branagh doesn’t seem as eager as Cuaron to interrogate his own memories, or to reckon with how the protective veil of one’s parents can shield a child from reality.

Scream review: Metatextual as ever, the horror franchise now takes a stab at toxic fanboys

The minor-key pleasure of daily, juvenile toils will do nicely instead. Buddy fosters a crush on a schoolmate and attempts to steal sweets from a local shop. His parents seem so glamorous and impossibly noble that they could surely have only been conjured up by the memories of a beloved child. Dornan possesses the quiet, romantic intensity of a man just trying to do right by his family; Balfe carries her resilience with a regal elegance. Their characters are tremendously in love – the film’s best scene is one where father croons “Everlasting Love”, while mother dances in the warm embrace of a spotlight. Buddy’s grandparents ( Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds), meanwhile, have been married for so long that they now seem to work in perfect sync – they dance and sing, too, while doling out advice with the kind of majesty that only actors such as Dench and Hinds can confidently deliver.

The real talk – violence, religion, identity, politics – appears only in short, sharp bursts. And true hatred is far too conveniently condensed into a single, straightforwardly villainous figure (Colin Morgan). There’s an artificial neatness to Buddy’s world: ground that seems like it’s never been walked on before; gates that have been barely touched by passing hands. That’s easily explained by the fact that, because of the pandemic, Branagh elected to shoot on a studio backlot instead of a real street. But it might better serve his vision of Belfast – one that’s not so much about the lives we lead, but the ones the silver screen allows us to dream of.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Want an ad-free experience?

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

My Independent Premium
Account details
Help centre

Culture | Film

Belfast film review: Branagh’s playful nostalgia warms the heart even as it makes blood run cold

A winner at Toronto, and tipped to snag more big prizes at the Baftas and Oscars, Kenneth Branagh ’s latest movie is a semi-autobiographical drama about growing up during the Troubles. Though it contains sentimental and self-serving moments, (and presses the ‘killer Van Morrison track’ button way too often), I loved it. The majority of the scenes may be shot in black and white, but the logic that underpins the story is anything but.

It’s 1969 and North Belfast urchin, Buddy (Jude Hill), is obsessed with football, dragons, comics and his brainy, dainty classmate, Catherine (Olive Tennant).

Buddy’s family live in a “mixed” neighbourhood and our hero is flabbergasted when a riot takes place in his street, designed to scare off Catholics. Buddy’s clan are Protestants, but his Pa ( Jamie Dornan ), Ma (Caitriona Balfe), older brother, Will (Lewis McAskie) and grandparents, Pop and Granny (Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench) despise the “gangsters” spear-heading the unrest. Militia leader Billy Clanton (Colin Morgan) insists all Protestants offer “cash or commitment”. And though Pa refuses to do either, Will and Buddy get swept up in the violence. As the British army become a permanent fixture in the area, Pa – mostly working in England, as a joiner – implores Ma to consider a re-location.

While full of (cracking) jokes, Belfast is incredibly tense. What’s taking place is ethnic cleansing (Clanton uses the word “cleanse”) and what makes it so confounding is that the lovely, Protestant families on Buddy’s street are complicit in the process.

Pa is referred to, twice, as a “lone ranger”, while a series of edits, and the Tex Ritter ballad High Noon link him to Gary Cooper’s Will Kane. He’s also shot from below, so he looms above us, and his excellent hand and eye coordination (he’s an expert bowler) pays dividends in a post-looting stand-off that shows the whole, pulchritudinous family pulling together to rout the gun-toting Clanton.

I’m guessing the real Mr and Mrs Branagh didn’t save their son from a bullet to the head. Which doesn’t rankle because, seconds after this dramatic and rapturous scene, Pop says the loyalists will now “send someone serious” after Pa, making clear that Clanton was always a footling foe and that the problem is so much bigger than the movie-dazzled Buddy can comprehend.

To put it another way, Buddy has the same name as the innocent protagonist of cosy Christmas classic, Elf. And Hinds’ magnificently wise and twinkly-eyed Pop definitely owes something to Santa Claus. But don’t be fooled. Nothing can magic away the prejudice that rips this community apart. And anyone who says this personal movie isn’t political is kidding themselves.

The cinematography and sound design, by the way, are a treat. In one sequence, the camera takes a 360 degree twirl, as time gets woozy and the world goes quiet. There’s also wicked fun to be had contrasting Pa and Ma’s immaculate, spartan, rented home with the grandparents’ more rickety gaff. The camera loiters at the open windows of both houses, allowing us to get a good look at Pop’s TV, which looks as if it’s been feasted on by mice.

True, the visuals in Roma (a film to which Belfast has been much compared) are more original. On the other hand, it’s rare, even in this day and age, for a director to have working-class roots and Branagh flies the flag beautifully for anyone whose child-care routine involved a granny, rather than a nanny.

O’Neill stands by criticism of Taoiseach after Martin brands her words partisan

Queen says Charles is doing very well as she completes Northern Ireland visit

Belfast boy ‘steals the show’ as Queen visits local bakery

Celebrate Art of London’s collaborations with women artists

Branagh - who mis-used Dench horribly in Artemis Fowl - has now atoned for that crime. Dench, like the whole cast, is irresistible. And as well as making a decent fist of the Belfast accent, she gets the last word. As Granny watches loved ones leave, Dench growls, with a fury indistinguishable from grief, “Go now, and don’t look back.”

Branagh, of course, has chosen to disobey that command. He’s a highly esteemed director but for me, this is the first project he’s made that doesn’t labour to impress. Belfast casually acknowledges the nastiness of existence. Here’s to a playful take on nostalgia, that somehow warms your heart, even as it makes your blood run cold.

98mins, 12A. In cinemas

Create a FREE account to continue reading

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

What Is Cinema?

Kenneth Branagh Goes Home in Belfast

By Richard Lawson

Image may contain Furniture Couch Human Person Sitting Ciarn Hinds Judi Dench Living Room Indoors and Room

At one point in Kenneth Branagh ’s sweet, glancing film memoir Belfast (now a 2022 Oscar winner ), we see the young protagonist, Buddy ( Jude Hill ), reading a Thor comic book. Aha! A little joke—a reference to the fact that a version of this boy will one day go on to direct a movie version of Thor . It is one of the film’s few direct acknowledgements that this story is about Branagh himself, though the entire movie hinges on us knowing who this otherwise average kid in 1969 Northern Ireland will turn out to be.

That is, I suppose, the demand of projects like this, which gesture toward larger social history but really are just an artist remembering, offering up musings on their childhood to give us a fuller picture of themselves. This can, in the wrong hands (and even in some of the right ones), come off as preening vanity, the way that self-obsessed people think every little detail of themselves is fascinating. But in Belfast , Branagh avoids such aggrandizement, partly because he did, actually, grow up in interesting times.

The city of Branagh’s youth was gripped by The Troubles, a conflict between unionist (and largely Protestant) Northern Irish folk determined to stay in the United Kingdom and the republicans (mostly Catholic) who wanted to break off and join Ireland. In Branagh’s, and now Buddy’s, neighborhood, Protestants like Buddy’s family had long lived in harmony with their Catholic neighbors. Much of that falls to ruin in the late 1960s, causing many families to leave their homes and relocate to, hopefully, more peaceful climes.

Branagh’s was such a family, and that slow choice is gently delineated in Belfast . The film is told mostly through the eyes of 9-year-old Buddy, though we do spend time with his parents, who must have been the most beautiful people on the entirety of the Emerald Isle. Why else would they now be played by Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan , who smolder away at each other (and at us), never all that mistakable for plain folk? Despite the absurdity of their Aero bar-melting hotness, though, both give modest, affable performances. Balfe is especially effective in scenes when the parents debate, with great pain, whether or not to leave their beloved community behind in search of safety and better opportunity.

The film is shot in a lush black and white, which immediately likens Belfast to another look back at a filmmaker’s childhood time and place: Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma . But Branagh’s film is not so ambitious as Cuarón’s epic; he keeps things on an intimate, homey scale, preferring tart Irish humor and wistful boyhood pleasures over expansive flash and grandeur. This can make the film feel a little slight, even with the conflict bearing down on the family’s street—threatening Buddy’s clan with ostracization and, later, actual physical harm.

What works best about Belfast is what Branagh doesn’t do. Though a few Van Morrison songs lilting over the soundtrack do risk cliché, there is otherwise an admirable lack of the expected schmaltz. Belfast is a trim 97 minutes long, leaving Branagh little room to indulge in the kind of What a Time It Was mid-century nostalgia that has so plagued film and television memoir for decades now. There are maudlin bits here and there, particularly when adorable little Buddy is having adorable little chats with his grandfather, played by Ciarán Hinds , and his grandmother, given signature pepper by Judi Dench . But those moments are spare and fleeting. And anyway, who wouldn’t want to hear a little witticism from Hinds or Dench, perched there in the corner of the frame like old birds?

One such exchange between Buddy and his gran involves the two of them on a city bus home from seeing a show. “You do love your films,” Granny says to Buddy (pronounced, of course, “fill-ums”). And, yes, we know that Branagh does love his films. This moment, connecting past anonymous kid to present A-list filmmaker, is far more winning than is that little Thor easter egg. Mostly because it’s another character, presumably based on a very real person, who is making note of a distinct, shining quality in the young Branagh. And it’s such a simple observation, one that only we in the audience know actually indicates big things. In that moment, Belfast ’s scope briefly widens and deepens, becoming a portrait of the artist at his nascency: enthusiastic and in love, with only a dawning hope for all the wonder that was to come.

— Unhappy Little Trees: The Dark Legacy of Bob Ross — The True Story of a Hollywood Partnership Built and Destroyed by Money, Sex, and Celebrity — Ted Lasso ’s Roy Kent on Why the Show Isn’t “Warm and Fuzzy” — Caftans, Goyard, and Elvis : Inside The White Lotus ’s Costumes — The Chair Is Like an Academic Game of Thrones — The Best Movies and Shows Streaming on Netflix This Month — Rachael Leigh Cook on Reclaiming She’s All That — Watch Kristen Stewart Channel Princess Di in Spencer ’s Official Trailer — From the Archive: Jeffrey Epstein and Hollywood’s Omnipresent Publicist — Sign up for the “HWD Daily” newsletter for must-read industry and awards coverage—plus a special weekly edition of “Awards Insider.”

The Bear Season 3: All the Major Guest Stars

By Savannah Walsh

Jonathan Van Ness Denies Verbal Abuse Allegations on Queer Eye Set

Richard Lawson

Chief critic.

Here: Robert Zemeckis’s New Movie Spans a Century, but the Camera Never Moves

By Anthony Breznican

Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon on Big Little Lies Season 3, Their Hot New Projects, and Their “Lifetime” of Collaboration

By David Canfield

Maya Hawke Takes a Refreshing Stance on Her “Nepotistic” Rise

By Joe Reid

Richard Linklater Explains How He Turned True Crime Into Screwball Comedy

By Eve Batey

The Acolyte Wanders Off the Beaten Star Wars Path&-And It’s Worth Following

By Joy Press

By Erin Vanderhoof

Skip to main content
Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Movie Reviews

LISTEN & FOLLOW
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

Kenneth Branagh's autobiographical 'Belfast' never quite finds its point of view

Justin Chang

The family (CaitrÃÂona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Jude Hill and Lewis McAskie) goes to the movies in Belfast . Rob Youngson/Focus Features hide caption

The family (CaitrÃÂona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Jude Hill and Lewis McAskie) goes to the movies in Belfast .

It was Federico Fellini who once said that "All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster's autobiography." He knew of what he spoke, given his fondness for self-portraiture in films like 8 1/2 and especially Amarcord , his 1973 classic about his own childhood. Cinema history is full of such great memory pieces, like François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, John Boorman's Hope and Glory and Terence Davies' The Long Day Closes , all made by directors looking back with aching tenderness at their early years.

Kenneth Branagh's Belfast has already courted such comparisons since its warm reception at festivals earlier this fall. You can see why: This is a rare dive into personal territory from a filmmaker known for directing and often starring in adaptations of Shakespeare and Agatha Christie . And Branagh's working-class childhood was certainly more dramatic than most: He was just a young boy when the Troubles began in Northern Ireland and his home city of Belfast was plunged into sectarian violence.

Jude Hill is Branagh's younger stand-in, Buddy, who's playing outside when fighting breaks out in the street and Molotov cocktails start flying. Branagh stages this sequence with explosive intensity, but for most of Belfast , the Troubles hover in the background, a source of anxiety as well as confusion.

Buddy doesn't understand why he and his Protestant family are suddenly supposed to hate their Catholic neighbors, and his decent, tolerant-minded parents don't get it, either. Caitríona Balfe plays his mother, who's done most of the work raising Buddy and his older brother. Jamie Dornan is Buddy's frequently absent father, who works in England as a skilled laborer.

During one of his father's trips back home, Buddy eavesdrops as his parents argue about their finances and future. His pa wants them all to leave Belfast and its Troubles behind, but his ma can't imagine living anywhere else. (It doesn't spoil anything to note that Branagh and his family did end up moving to England.)

Belfast is a fond farewell to Branagh's childhood. He wants to capture something of the city's scrappy, resilient spirit, mainly by cramming the soundtrack with classic songs plus one original tune by the Belfast legend Van Morrison . There's a nice balance of sweet and tart in Buddy's relationships with his ailing grandfather and sharp-tongued grandmother, nicely played by Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench. There's also a cute subplot involving Buddy's crush on a classmate and his efforts to improve his grades and get her attention.

Although Branagh shot the movie in black and white, he sometimes lets a little color burst into the frame — like when Buddy and his family go to the pictures and watch late '60s hits like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang . In showing us these brightly colored images, Branagh foreshadows his own career as a filmmaker and pays tribute to the magic of the movies. These are lovely moments, but they also made me wish that Belfast itself were a more moving, transporting experience. I'm still trying to figure out why a story that's clearly so personal to its maker somehow wound up feeling so muted in the telling.

It may have something to do with the pandemic, which made it difficult for the crew to shoot in the real Belfast, forcing them to build a 1960s street set on an airport runway. You can feel the lack of grit and texture in the production design, and also in the overly polished sheen of the images. But the problems with Belfast aren't just technical. There's an emotional restraint to this movie that should be admirable in theory: Branagh at least doesn't try to jerk sentimental tears. If anything, he's too guarded, as if he were reluctant to probe the past too deeply.

There's also something a little studied about the way Branagh relies on older movies to tell his family's story. At one point, he uses images from the classic western High Noon to underscore the struggle of Buddy's father when a menacing Protestant gang leader tries to recruit him for battle. It's a clever but secondhand reference in a movie that never quite finds its own point of view. All art may be autobiographical, but Belfast is a reminder that not all autobiography is necessarily art.

‘Belfast’ Film Review: Kenneth Branagh Crafts a Rich, Moving Memory Piece

Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe star in a movie that bursts with life as it explores a pivotal moment in the director’s own childhood

Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe in Belfast

This review of “Belfast” was first published on Sept. 12 after the film’s premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.

Film directors have been exploring their own childhood memories on screen for decades, and the honor roll of notable films that have come from that exploration ranges from Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” to George Lucas’ “American Graffiti,” from Louis Malle’s “Au Revoir les Enfants” to Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous,” Mike Mills’ “20 th Century Women” to Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari,” from John Boorman’s “Hope and Glory” to Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma.” Writer-director-actor Kenneth Branagh has now tried his hand at the genre, and to say that “Belfast” brings out the best in him would be an understatement.

Visually stunning, emotionally wrenching and gloriously human, “Belfast” takes one short period from Branagh’s life and finds in it a coming-of-age story, a portrait of a city fracturing in an instant and a profoundly moving lament for what’s been lost during decades of strife in his homeland of Northern Ireland. Plus it’s funny as hell – because if anybody knows how to laugh in the face of tragedy, it’s the Irish.

The film, a Focus Features release, came to the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday evening for what was originally supposed to have been its world premiere. At least that’s how it was announced when TIFF revealed its slate of films in August – but suddenly it slipped into the lineup for last week’s Telluride Film Festival, which stole a premiere that would have been one of Toronto’s biggest gets this year.

Still, the TIFF screening had the feel of an event, as much as any screening could in this year of smaller industry attendance and socially distanced crowds. Roy Thomson Hall was about as full as it gets this year, and Branagh got a big ovation when he and star Jamie Dornan introduced the film and he talked about the Belfast neighborhood he was trying to honor with his movie.

“We laughed a lot about dark things, and we held each other when we cried about serious things,” he said. “And then, as they say, things changed.”

That change happens very early in “Belfast.” The film opens with panoramic, full-color shots of the city today, but then it sinks over a wall and into a black-and-white street scene from 1969, with kids playing and adults shouting in a scene of bustling life that seems too bustling and too perfect – except that this is the memory of 9-year-old Buddy (newcomer Jude Hill), so of course some after-school street football seems like an unfettered delight.

But then, with shocking suddenness, the street is filled with angry men shouting, breaking windows and blowing up cars; it’s chaotic and confusing to Buddy, and so it is to us, too. There’s no context, no explanation of the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969 – it’s just Protestants trying to drive Catholics out of a community where, Buddy’s dad insists, “There is no our side and their side in this neighborhood.”

Except that now there are sides in the neighborhood, and Buddy’s family – Protestants who have no beef with the Catholics who live around them, except that they think the whole idea of going to confession and being forgiven is weird – are pressured to take a side.

On one level, the film is about a family torn between staying in the home they know and fleeing for the sake of the kids. Dornan plays the father who is forced to travel to England on work for weeks at a time, Caitríona Balfe is the mother who raises the kids in his absence and never appears less than radiant in Buddy’s eyes, and they’re both pitch perfect. Meanwhile, Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds play the grandparents with a quiet virtuosity that summons up a lifetime of shared history in the smallest gesture or the simplest line. And as Buddy, Hill not only looks like what you think Branagh probably looked like at that age, he’s the most watchable person on the screen even when he’s sharing it with stars and legends.

The family’s dilemma could easily consume the film’s crisp 97-minute running time, but one of the pleasures of “Belfast” is the way it shows life going on even with barbed wire and barricades at the end of the block. Buddy may be worried about his parents moving the family to England or Australia (or the moon, for that matter), but he’s just as concerned with impressing the cute girl at school. The movie bursts with life, with jokes and threats and tragedy and comedy all mixed up into an occasionally sentimental but irresistibly moving blend – and it also bursts with a love for movies themselves, as the family makes regular trips to the local cinema to see “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” or “One Million Years B.C.,” and as Buddy and his brother sneak peaks at “High Noon” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” on the TV.

When the family goes to the movies, the images we see on that screen are in full color, as if they somehow felt more vibrant than day-to-day life. But in truth, the black-and-white cinematography from Branagh’s longtime D.P. Haris Zambarloukos is so rich and beautiful that even Raquel Welch in a doe-skin bikini (from “One Million Years B.C.”) pales by comparison.

The sound is equally stunning. You may have soured on Van Morrison as his anti-vax sentiments have made his new music unlistenable (I certainly have), but in his voice is the soul of Northern Ireland, and his contributions to “Belfast” are essential. He wrote one new song for the opening credits and supplied a number of other songs that are used throughout the film – not the ’60s numbers you might expect in a movie set in this era, but ’70s and ’80s songs that feel emotionally right even if they’re from another time. (When I hear Van sing “Carrickfergus” or “And the Healing Has Begun,” I stop caring about his cockamamie COVID rants.) Morrison also wrote saxophone-based instrumentals that serve as the film’s score, and they’re lovely and haunting.

There are times when “Belfast” meanders, times when it flirts with melodrama, times when it makes abrupt tonal jumps: a funeral one moment, dad singing the ’60s hit “Everlasting Love” the next. But boredom is part of childhood, and so is melodrama, and life takes weird twists. The film feels true in the way it must be exploring Branagh’s memories of a tumultuous and confusing time, and the way it pays tribute to a vibrant community as that community is irrevocably changed.

Branagh began writing the script early in the pandemic and then shot it under strict COVID protocols, but nothing about “Belfast” feels rushed or compromised. After a decade of mostly directing genre exercises with varying degrees of success, from “Thor” to “Cinderella” to “Murder on the Orient Express” to “Artemis Fowl,” he has made a film that feels as if the emotional stakes are high. And the payoff is even higher.

‘Belfast’: Kenneth Branagh’s Troubles-in-Mind Memoir-Drama Is a Personal Triumph

By David Fear

It’s 1969, and the street in Northern Ireland where 10-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) lives is bustling with kids playing soccer, neighbors running in and out of row houses, mothers chatting in doorways and calling their children in for lunch. Then a mob suddenly appears from around a corner, with masked men throwing Molotov cocktails and setting cars on fire. Everything is chaos and jittery camera movements as folks scramble. Soon, British troops are checking papers and tanks are rolling down the block. It’s ground zero for the August Riots, which would set the stage for the sectarian violence that would become synonymous with Belfast for decades. These militants want the Catholics out of this largely Protestant neighborhood. They will burn every shop and home to the ground if they have to.

Buddy’s family is Protestant. His dad (Jamie Dornan) works in England, however, and has no issue with those of another faith — which makes the whole clan a target. It also takes him away from the family a lot, much to consternation of Buddy, his brother, and his long-suffering mom ( Outlander ‘s Catríona Balfe). Luckily, the lad has support from his grandparents (Ciarán Hinds and Dame Judi Dench), who, when they aren’t affectionately bickering with each other, counsel Buddy about how to woo the brainy girl he has a crush on. An older friend, Moira (Lara McDonnell), teaches him how to nick chocolate bars from the sweets shop. Star Trek is on TV, One Million Years B.C. is playing at the Saturday matinee picture show, blue-eyed Celtic soul is on every jukebox, and a man just landed on the moon. Life is beautiful, until it isn’t. Belfast is Buddy’s kingdom, his safe place, until it can’t be any longer.

Belfast, Kenneth Branagh ‘s semi-autobiographical tale of growing up in late-Sixties Northern Ireland, is a major change of pace for the man who was once dubbed “the next Laurence Olivier,” and easily the best thing he’s done as a writer-director in decades. (All apologies to Hercule Poirot’s mustache .) It’s a memory piece, evoking a specific time, place, and political crisis in a way that is indelibly, achingly personal. This is the territory that the writer-director is staking out: the fertile ground where nostalgia meets history, filtered through both a boy’s eyes and an older man’s memory banks. It’s a look back in anger, for sure — but it also revisits the moment when the gates of Eden closed behind him that’s brimming with the wistful pang you get from flipping through old photographs, each more faded from time than the last.

Editor’s picks

Every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history.

If you had to sum up Belfast in a single image, you could do worse than Dornan and Balfe dancing in the street with each other, smiles on their faces as familiar Irish R&B (new then, old now) plays, with the whole scene framed behind a loose wall of barbed wire. It’s a movie that very much has the Troubles in mind, but as part of a bigger picture that constitutes the filmmaker’s feelings about his hometown. The violence isn’t just background noise so much as one of the louder, more dissonant instruments in an orchestra he’s conducting. And it’s the motivating factor for the family having to contemplate leaving their community behind. Like Branagh, who moved to England with his parents and siblings when he was nine, Buddy will eventually have to say goodbye. But it’s part of the legacy of the Irish to leave anyway, as resiliency and relocation has become as associated with their culture as shamrocks and shillelagh s; as one character declares, “all [we] need to survive is a phone, a pint and the sheet music to ‘Danny Boy.'”

Cup your hands around your ears, and you’ll hear the faint sound of comparisons to Roma being whispered in the wind, partially because Belfast ‘s particular mix of the past’s lighter and darker shades are reminiscent of Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 masterpiece , and partially because Branagh’s film is also largely shot in black-and-white. (The rare uses of color are mostly reserved for the movies and plays Buddy attends; it’s an effective if heavy-handed homage to the life-changing magic of art.) You can’t say that this latest cine-memoir balances the same mixture of poetry and memoir as deftly as that earlier film; few movies could. But it knows how to find and hit the emotional sweet spots, from the agony of nationalist strife and the ecstasy of Buddy’s parents lip-syncing “Everlasting Love” at a wake. Even viewers who don’t feel their buttons being pushed — or rather, mashed — by the soundtrack cues (there are so, so, so many Van Morrison songs), period details and the Hinds-Dench version of these guys will find themselves drawn in by the heartstrings Branagh is plucking here. Some viewers in particular, likely of the Academy-voting persuasion. We aren’t saying Belfast has been designed to win awards — there’s way too much of Branagh’s blood on the table for that. But its mix of gravitas, sentimentality, salty wit, tragedy, and roman à clef storytelling is most definitely Academy catnip.

Homelander on 'The Boys' Was Always Meant to Be Donald Trump — But Antony Starr Doesn't Love It

Starr Power
By Brian Hiatt

‘The Umbrella Academy’ Showrunner Accused of ‘Toxic, Bullying, Manipulative, and Retaliatory Behavior’

By Cheyenne Roundtree

Nigel Lythgoe Dismissed From 'All American Girl' Sexual Assault Lawsuit

By Nancy Dillon

Martin Mull, Comedian and Actor of 'Clue' and 'Arrested Development,' Dead at 80

By Charisma Madarang

Alec Baldwin Denied Bid to Dismiss 'Rust' Manslaughter Charge Over 'Destroyed' Gun

'RUST' TRAGEDY

Most Popular

Sean penn says he 'went 15 years miserable on sets' after 'milk' and could not play gay role today due to a 'timid and artless policy toward the human imagination', eddie murphy says elvis presley, michael jackson and prince all serve as "cautionary tales" for him, nicole kidman & keith urban’s daughter sunday is apparently going by a different name, florida's ron desantis says 'sexual' festival caused him to veto $32 m. in arts grants, you might also like, amber ruffin comes out on the last day of pride: ‘be proud of who you are’, loewe unveils destination shop at taikoo li chengdu, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, this weekend destroyed box-office myths: ‘quiet place’ prequel opens to $53m, indian epic smokes ‘horizon’, caitlin clark and fever bring road show to sellout crowd in phoenix.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Belfast film review: Kenneth Branagh’s memoir is black-and-white and rose-tinted all over

The film is aggresively apolitical but as romanticised reverie it could hardly be bettered.

Director and writer Kenneth Branagh has described the process of making Belfast, a semi-autobiographical comedy drama set in 1969, at the start of the Troubles, as "very emotional" as the film makes its European premiere at the London Film Festival.

Kenneth Branagh’s idealisation of his home city before the Fall plays out to some of Van Morrison’s most soothing melodies. Makes sense. We join Belfast in the last year of the 1960s – as the Troubles surge and Morrison’s first great solo period peaks. Indeed, the whole film plays like one of the singer’s later, sentimental, spoken-word pieces. Gently tapped brass. Tinkly piano. “Matchbox cars. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Soap flakes. Thunderbirds are go. Don’t you wish it could be like this all the time?” Aggressively apolitical, Belfast will do little to educate the wider world about the inequalities that fertilised the coming violence. But, as romanticised reverie – black-and-white and rose-tinted all over – it could hardly be bettered.

Shot largely on clean sets, the film stages its riots like dance numbers in a golden-age musical

The film has taken so long to get here it feels as if it has already been through two or three complete critical cycles. A hit at Telluride and Toronto, where it won the influential People's Choice Award, Belfast is, with most bookies, still marginal favourite for best picture at the Oscars. Why not? A clatter of the era's best actors engage joyfully with the director's economic, autobiographical screenplay. Caitríona Balfe and Jamie Dornan are knitting-pattern gorgeous as parents to newcomer Jude Hill's cheeky young tyke. Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench manage the platonic ideal of kindly Ulster grandparents. Shot largely on clean sets, the film stages its riots like dance numbers in a golden-age musical. The word "irresistible" is, well, hard to resist.

We begin with a title sequence that is a little too close to a Fáilte Ireland commercial for comfort. Cut to a new, indifferent Morrison song, the montage takes us past colour images of contemporary Belfast before peering over a fence and encountering a black-and-white idyll. There are shades here of Alfonso Cuaron's Roma (which Branagh hadn't seen when he began production), but we are closer in spirit to Terence Davies's equally autobiographical The Long Day Closes. In both films, set only a few hundred miles apart, a stand-in for the young director escapes from the everyday at his local flea pit. Lest we be in any doubt as to the filmmaker's intentions, young Buddy is seen reading a Thor comic – a character later adapted for the MCU by Branagh. Unlike Davies's version of Liverpool, this take on Belfast seems scarcely less glamorous than the images screened at the neighbourhood Odeon. Why bother with High Noon when you have equally attractive variants on Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly at home?

That winding in of escapist pop culture with the film's heightened reality hits a crag when Buddy's Da explicitly takes on the Cooper persona as loyalist hoodlums circle. Despite the rising strains of Do Not Forsake Me, the misguided scene is less suggestive of High Noon than of a Milky Bar commercial. Elsewhere the filmmakers just about get away with the balancing act. Having committed himself to a sunnier take on potentially harrowing material, Branagh is wise to tiptoe around the sectarian politics. The religious jokes are mostly at the expense of the family's Protestant preconceptions. "I've nothing against Catholics, but it's a religion of fear," one of the community says. We then cut straight to a non-conformist minister yelling about an "eternal pit of suffering". Greater divisions loom for working-class communities that then still enjoyed a degree of integration.

We always know where the story is heading, but that does nothing to dull its ruthless emotional twists

As we might expect from a Branagh film, the few moments of awkwardness are nudged aside by consistently excellent performances. Hill stays just the right side of cute. Balfe and Dornan confirm their status as cask-strength movie stars. Hinds twinkles as a wise old rogue. Dench, a long-time collaborator of the director, has the smallest of the five big roles, but makes the biggest impact with a brief, late speech that could draw tears from a barmbrack. With worries gathering around the fictional parents and our nagging knowledge of Branagh’s ultimate removal to Reading, we always know where the story is heading, but that does nothing to dull its ruthless emotional twists.

A gorgeous, proudly unreliable glance over the shoulder. A tribute to an often maligned city. No doubt a source of incoming controversy. What else would you expect from a film called Belfast?

Opens on January 21st

Donald Clarke

Donald Clarke, a contributor to The Irish Times, is Chief Film Correspondent and a regular columnist

IN THIS SECTION

Cork actor éanna hardwicke: ‘there is a shift. young men are more open’, four new films to see this week, lily gladstone: ‘we are done with being told our stories won’t resonate. that’s been proven wrong so often’, eternal you: documentary portrait about the rush to digitally resurrect dead loved ones is scarier than any ai fiction, the movie quiz: who appeared in all three of the godfathers, paul howard: i never loved an animal as much as i loved humphrey. for 13 and a half years, he was my constant companion, sophie o’sullivan takes gold in 1,500m at national championships, a week in center parcs in longford: standing in the forest, you feel the money draining gently out of your bank account, french far right on course to take power in parliamentary elections, i saw a video of my ex-girlfriend on a porn site but i don’t think she knows, latest stories, great places to eat by the water in summer 2024, untrustworthy companies love to talk about trust, ‘there can be violent outbursts or total apathy’: principals call for counselling supports at primary level, the dup is most vulnerable in the constituencies of east belfast, lagan valley and south antrim, ‘athrú meoin’ de dhíth ag an leibhéal is airde - ó coinn.

Terms & Conditions
Privacy Policy
Cookie Information
Cookie Settings
Community Standards

Belfast Review

12 Nov 2021

Belfast , Kenneth Branagh ’s semi-autobiographical take on growing up in Northern Ireland’s capital during the tumultuous ’60s, ends with a dedication for the ones who stayed, left and were lost. It’s a sentiment redolent of the filmmaker’s big-hearted, emotionally direct approach. While it lacks the dramatic heft of the similar Roma , Branagh applies epic filmmaking style, driven by a bouncy Van Morrison score, to a small, intimate scenario. Winning the People’s Choice Award at Toronto, Belfast doesn’t tell  a linear yarn; instead, it’s an assemblage of anecdotes and moments that will charm and spark with wherever and whenever you grew up.

It starts in colour with a touristy view of the city — the Harland & Wolff docks, the Titanic hotel — until a crane shot moving over a wall reveals a street in 1969, now in striking black-and-white. Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos’ camera flies and glides around the busy street, which turns into a riot as Protestant gangs torch Catholic homes. Caught in the melee is nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill), the youngest member of a Protestant family  that includes Buddy’s older brother Will (an under-served Lewis McAskie), Pa ( Jamie Dornan ), who works over the water as a joiner to pay off tax debts so is rarely home, Ma ( Outlander ’s Caitriona Balfe ), doggedly keeping the family on the straight and narrow, plus Pop ( Ciarán Hinds ) and Granny ( Judi Dench ).

Balfe is the star here — the chemistry she shares with Dornan is tangible.

The Troubles serves as an undercurrent rather than a leading player, making Belfast much more of a memory movie than a political diatribe. Most of the film is concerned with Buddy’s misunderstandings (about politics and religion) and misadventures (falls for the local Catholic swot, mucks up stealing a Turkish Delight), Hill making a natural, engaging Branagh surrogate. Dornan is a mostly genial dad figure, while Hinds and Dench drop moments of gravitas, but Balfe is the star here and gives the film’s stand-out speech about the dangers of leaving home — the chemistry she shares with Dornan is tangible.

Branagh’s filmmaking frequently goes for broke. Sometimes it misses — using High Noon ’s ‘Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’’ to turn a street showdown into a Western face-off cheapens the moment — but mostly it’s grandiloquent and luminous. He’s also mounted an affectionate tribute to late-’60s childhood ephemera (footballer Danny Blanchflower, Thunderbirds suits, Corgi Aston Martin DB5s) and visits to the movies splashed with colour, life through different eyes; though a trip to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang feels a little over-the-top — the family reacting to flying sequences like they are on a rollercoaster. Branagh’s movie-movie tendencies emerge again when Pa launches into an exuberant rendition of ‘Everlasting Love’, sung to his wife. Still, Belfast is the kind of film where you occasionally print the legend, not the truth. And given the context in which Branagh grew up, you can absolutely see why.

Movies | 26 04 2023

Movies | 27 03 2022

Movies | 28 03 2022

Movies | 23 03 2022

Movies | 08 02 2022

Movies | 03 02 2022

Movies | 21 12 2021

Movies | 10 11 2021

Jamie Dornan Goes Back to ‘Belfast,’ but Not Without Worry

This Oscar contending drama takes Dornan from “Fifty Shades of Grey” into prestige filmmaking, though many things about the film hit awfully close to home.

“I’m more ambitious than I’ve ever let on before,” Jamie Dornan said. Credit... Charlotte Hadden for The New York Times

Supported by

Share full article

By Kyle Buchanan

Nov. 18, 2021

Jamie Dornan stuck his fingers in the fireplace, fussing with a few stray flakes of ash, searching for something small to concentrate on so he wouldn’t have to think about the very big thing that was happening the next day.

“I’m just hoping to not have vegetables thrown at us, and calls for the guillotine,” the 39-year-old actor told me.

It was the day before Dornan’s new film, “Belfast,” an Irish coming-of-age story, would screen for the first time in the Northern Irish city that bears its name, a city where Dornan spent the first 19 years of his life. Around 1,500 people were expected to attend the premiere, and Dornan anticipated how that hometown crowd might feel about a movie set there: curious, proprietary and quick to pounce if “Belfast” made even a single misstep.

“We could get all the good reviews in the world, but what we really want is for people from Belfast to like this film,” Dornan said, fidgeting in his armchair. “So it’s going to be interesting tomorrow night. God, it’s going to be emotional!”

Those good reviews from the rest of the world weren’t just a hypothetical: Since its first screening at the Telluride Film Festival in late August, “Belfast” has received such fond reactions that many pundits consider it a front-runner for the best-picture Oscar. Drawn from the childhood experiences of the writer-director Kenneth Branagh, the film follows 9-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill), his beloved Pa (Dornan) and protective Ma (Caitriona Balfe) as they mull whether to stay in Belfast after their neighborhood erupts in sectarian violence.

“Belfast” is filmed in black and white, was directed by a five-time Oscar nominee and stars Judi Dench as Dornan’s mother; in other words, it’s a long way from the “ Fifty Shades of Grey ” franchise, a critically derided sex trilogy that made Dornan famous even as it hung a millstone around his neck. The last time Dornan went to the Oscars, as a presenter in 2017, his very presence was a sop to the viewing audience: Here was the handsome, frequently naked guy from an S&M blockbuster that most Oscar voters wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot whip.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

Want all of The Times? Subscribe .

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

For Parents
For Educators
Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

Get the app
Movie Reviews
Best Movie Lists
Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best TV Lists
Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
Common Sense Selections for TV
Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

Book Reviews
Best Book Lists
Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Game Reviews
Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Podcast Reviews
Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

App Reviews
Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

YouTube Channel Reviews
YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

How to Help Kids Spot Misinformation and Disinformation

Family Tech Planners
Digital Skills
All Articles
Latino Culture
Black Voices
Asian Stories
Native Narratives
LGBTQ+ Pride
Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

Common sense media reviewers.

Drama set in 1960s Northern Ireland has violence, language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Courage in standing up to religious bigotry and in

Buddy is a happy, intelligent, likable young boy w

Main characters are White and are depicted as bein

Violent scenes involving rioting and looting, with

Childhood crushes. Young boy talks extensively abo

One use of "f--kers." Other language includes "blo

Reference to brands of candy and confectionary, as

Occasional drinking at social events. In one scene

Positive Messages

Courage in standing up to religious bigotry and intimidation. Importance of family and being there for one another, even when facing increasing hardships. Intergenerational relationships. Neighbors look out for each other and look beyond people's religion.

Positive Role Models

Buddy is a happy, intelligent, likable young boy who has an innocent outlook on life, despite the troubles plaguing his neighborhood. He sees beyond religion and, like his family, has Protestant and Catholic friends. He is occasionally led astray by his older cousin, who convinces him to steal and loot. Buddy's parents are loving and want the best for their two sons. But they often have different ideas about how to achieve that, leading to some heated arguments. Buddy has a warm relationship with his grandparents, who offer him advice on everything from schoolwork to girls. Other characters, such as Billy Clanton, use the religious divide to extort and create violence.

Diverse Representations

Main characters are White and are depicted as being Protestant or Catholic. Women are shown to be strong, courageous, principled, often standing up to the men in their lives. Some diversity among supporting cast. A confectionary shop is owned by someone of South Asian descent. Reference to a curry causing someone to have diarrhea, which plays on stereotypes.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Violent scenes involving rioting and looting, with characters armed with chains and batons. Firebombs thrown, cars set alight and exploded, windows smashed. Barbed wire barricades erected. Soldiers driving tanks enter residential neighborhoods. Characters routinely intimidated with violence -- forced from their homes, ordered to pay money or to join the perpetrators. Parent and child held by a character who has a gun in their back pocket in a stand-off with soldiers. A shot is fired but no one is hit; hostages escape unharmed. Character punches someone in the face. News reports mention people dying as a result of cross-religious fighting. During an argument, a character throws plates at their spouse. After a short stay in hospital with an unspecified illness, an older character dies. They are briefly seen in an open coffin prior to their funeral.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Childhood crushes. Young boy talks extensively about liking a girl in his class. Married couples show each other affection -- dancing and telling each other they love them. While watching a movie at the theater, a character comments on the attractiveness of one of the stars, who is dressed in revealing clothing.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

One use of "f--kers." Other language includes "bloody," "hell," "shite," "a--hole," "arse," "buggers," "heck," and "shut up." Also "for God's sake" and "Christ" used as exclamations. A character tells another, "you're mental."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Reference to brands of candy and confectionary, as well as Guinness. Christmas presents are exchanged. Multiple conversations about earning more money, but in context of necessity rather than greed. A couple of references to gambling.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Occasional drinking at social events. In one scene, a character is seen singing in the street while holding a glass, the implication being that they may have had too much to drink.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Belfast is writer-director Kenneth Branagh 's captivating drama about a young boy growing up in the 1960s during the religious conflict in Northern Ireland (a time commonly referred to as "The Troubles"). Though there are moments of violence as Protestants and Catholics clash, the movie is also warm and tender, since much of it is seen through the eyes of innocent schoolboy Buddy (Jude Hill). Catholics are bullied out of their homes by intimidation and violence. Firebombs are thrown, cars are set alight, and windows are smashed. A mother and son are briefly held at gunpoint. Despite the danger, there's plenty of humor, particularly involving scenes with Buddy and his grandparents ( Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds ). But there's also sadness, with a beloved character dying from an unspecified illness, and Buddy's parents ( Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe ) having to decide whether to leave their home to start another life. Strong language is frequent but, apart from one use of "f----rs," doesn't get stronger than "a--hole" and "shite." Although the movie doesn't dive into the political and religious intricacies of Northern Ireland, it does a great job of highlighting the seriousness of the situation while remaining accessible to younger viewers. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (6)
Kids say (4)

Based on 6 parent reviews

What is daily life when you are in a war and 9 years old?

What's the story.

In the 1960s, Buddy (Jude Hill) is a young boy living in BELFAST, when fighting between Northern Irish Protestants and Catholics is rife. With people being forced from their homes and violence occurring on his doorstep, Buddy and his family must decide whether to stay or leave the place they call home.

Is It Any Good?

Seen through the eyes of a young boy, this drama -- set in the late 1960s during the religious conflict in Northern Ireland -- manages to maintain a degree of innocence. There's a scene in Belfast , where Buddy -- played with such aplomb by Hill that it's difficult to believe this is his debut feature film role -- asks about the differences between Protestants and Catholics. In Buddy's mind, it seems crazy that his neighbors are being forced from their homes, simply for following another faith. Indeed, he's far more concerned with gaining the attention of a girl in his class. Of course, for the older characters, life's not so simple. Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe are excellent as Buddy's parents, who are left with the unenviable decision of whether to leave their home or stay and risk the safety of their two sons. And the scenes with Buddy's grandparents -- played by Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds -- pack the film's most emotional and amusing moments.

Written and directed by Kenneth Branagh , the film has been lovingly crafted. Branagh grew up in Belfast, and it's not a stretch to imagine that he channeled much of his own childhood experiences into Buddy. This also gives the film a degree of authenticity, even if the political and religious complexities of "The Troubles" are left relatively untouched. This is, after all -- and unlike how the film is shot -- far from a black-and-white situation. Instead, Branagh focuses on the daily details of his characters' lives: the unpaid tax bill, the family trips to the movies. They all serve as a reminder that these were ordinary people living through extraordinary times, of which Branagh has managed to retell in a superb piece of filmmaking.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Belfast . Did the violent scenes help tell the story in an effective way? Was it shocking, or thrilling? Why? Does exposure to violent media desensitize kids to violence?

What did you know about "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland before you saw this movie? Has it encouraged you to find out more? How to talk to kids about violence, crime, and war.

Discuss the dilemma Buddy's parents faced. What would you have done in their situation: moved away, or stayed?

Talk about some of the language used. Did it seem necessary, or excessive? What did it contribute to the movie?

Why do you think the filmmaker decided to shoot the movie in black and white? What effect did it have on the storytelling?

Movie Details

In theaters : November 12, 2021
On DVD or streaming : December 2, 2021
Cast : Caitriona Balfe , Ciaran Hinds , Jamie Dornan
Director : Kenneth Branagh
Studio : Focus Features
Genre : Drama
Topics : History
Character Strengths : Compassion , Courage
Run time : 97 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : some violence and strong language
Awards : Academy Award , Golden Globe - Golden Globe Award Winner
Last updated : June 20, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

In the Name of the Father

Want personalized picks for your kids' age and interests?

Bloody Sunday

Hope and Glory

Drama movies that tug at the heartstrings, best irish movies, related topics.

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Cast & crew
User reviews

Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvai in Kneecap (2024)

When fate brings Belfast teacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed 'low life scum' Naoise and Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish, they ... Read all When fate brings Belfast teacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed 'low life scum' Naoise and Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish, they lead a movement to save their mother tongue. When fate brings Belfast teacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed 'low life scum' Naoise and Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish, they lead a movement to save their mother tongue.

Rich Peppiatt
1 User review
14 Critic reviews
81 Metascore
1 win & 3 nominations

Móglaí Bap Or Naoise
(as Naoise Ó Cairealláin)

Mo Chara Or Liam Óg
(as Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh)

Dj Próvai Or JJ
(as JJ Ó Dochartaigh)

Detective Ellis

Arló Ó Cairealláin

Uncle Peadar
Wee Liam Óg

Gerry Adams
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

Trivia First Irish-language film to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

User reviews 1

chenp-54708
Jan 28, 2024
How long is Kneecap? Powered by Alexa
August 2, 2024 (United States)
Official Site
Irish Gaelic
British Film Institute (BFI)
Coimisiún na Meán
Curzon Film Distributors
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 45 minutes

More to explore

IMAGES

Belfast Movie Review: A Beautifully Moving Coming-of-Age Film
Belfast (2021) Movie Review
Review: Belfast
Belfast (2021) Movie Review
Oscar-nominated Belfast is exceptional
Belfast Directed by Kenneth Branagh Film Review

COMMENTS

Belfast movie review & film summary (2021)
Belfast. "Belfast" is unquestionably Kenneth Branagh 's most personal film to date, but it's also sure to have universal resonance. It depicts a violent, tumultuous time in Northern Ireland, but it does so through the innocent, exuberant eyes of a nine-year-old boy. And it's shot in gentle black-and-white, with sporadic bursts of ...
'Belfast' Review: A Boy's Life
Branagh's remembrances may be idealized, but with "Belfast" he has written a charming, rose-tinted thank-you note to the city that sparked his dreams and the parents whose sacrifices helped ...
Belfast
86% Tomatometer 335 Reviews 92% Audience Score 1,000+ Verified Ratings BELFAST is a movie straight from Branagh's own experience. A nine-year-old boy must chart a path towards adulthood through a ...
'Belfast': Film Review
Belfast. The Bottom Line A poignant journey back to a childhood charged with trauma. Venue: Telluride Film Festival. Release date: Friday, Nov. 12. Cast: Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, Jude Hill ...
Belfast
Belfast, at its heart, stands as a brilliantly performed, delicately written family drama that is a delight to watch. Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2023. Equal parts funny ...
Belfast (2021)
Belfast: Directed by Kenneth Branagh. With Jude Hill, Lewis McAskie, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan. A young boy and his working-class Belfast family experience the tumultuous late 1960s.
'Belfast' Review: Kenneth Branagh's Wee Memoir of Growing Up Irish
Crew: Director, writer: Kenneth Branagh. Camera: Haris Zambarloukos. Editor: Úna Ní Dhonghaíle. Music: Van Morrison. With: Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Colin ...
Belfast
Belfast is a black-and-white film, but it's beautifully shot. The dialogues are greatly written along side with perfect execution. ... We recap the just-concluded festival with a list of award winners and review summaries for dozens of films making their world premieres in Cannes, including new titles from David Cronenberg, Yorgos Lanthimos ...
Belfast review: Kenneth Branagh film is soft-focus coming-of-age nostalgia
Belfast review: Kenneth Branagh's drama is soft-focus coming-of-age nostalgia. ... The Zone of Interest review: Jonathan Glazer's Holocaust film is an unrelenting portrait of the banality of evil.
Belfast Review
This is an advanced review from the London Film Festival. Belfast opens in the US on Nov. 12 and in the UK on Feb. 25, 2022. Having plundered Shakespeare, Disney, Marvel, and most recently Agatha ...
Belfast movie review: Skirts politics with loving childhood memories
Belfast skirts politics with a child's-eye view of the Troubles. Kenneth Branagh renders his youthful memories in black and white. Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, and Jude Hill in ...
Belfast film review: A film about the Troubles that isn't about the
Dir: Kenneth Branagh. Starring: Caitriona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds, Colin Morgan, Jude Hill. 12A, 98 minutes. Kenneth Branagh's Belfast is a film about the Troubles that ...
Belfast film review: Branagh's playful nostalgia warms the heart even
Charlotte O'Sullivan January 21, 2022. Review at a glance. A winner at Toronto, and tipped to snag more big prizes at the Baftas and Oscars, Kenneth Branagh 's latest movie is a semi ...
Kenneth Branagh Goes Home in 'Belfast'
At one point in Kenneth Branagh's sweet, glancing film memoir Belfast (now a 2022 Oscar winner), we see the young protagonist, Buddy (Jude Hill), reading a Thor comic book. Aha! A little joke ...
Belfast, review: Jamie Dornan shines in Kenneth Branagh's tale of
At its best, Belfast recalls Hope and Glory, John Boorman's 1987 film based on its director's own Blitz-battered childhood. In one of many awards-montage-ready sequences, Dench rheumily ...
'Belfast' review: Kenneth Branagh's autobiographical film is too ...
Movie Reviews. Kenneth Branagh's autobiographical 'Belfast' never quite finds its point of view. November 12, 2021 10:29 AM ET. ... Jude Hill and Lewis McAskie) goes to the movies in Belfast.
Belfast Film Review: Kenneth Branagh's Rich, Moving Memory Piece
This review of "Belfast" was first published on Sept. 12 after the film's premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. Film directors have been exploring their own childhood memories on screen for ...
'Belfast': Kenneth Branagh's Troubles-in-Mind Memoir-Drama Is a
November 12, 2021. Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Jude Hill and Lewis McAskie in director Kenneth Branagh's 'Belfast'. Rob Youngson/Focus Features. It's 1969, and the street in ...
Belfast film review: Kenneth Branagh's memoir is black-and-white and
We join Belfast in the last year of the 1960s - as the Troubles surge and Morrison's first great solo period peaks. Indeed, the whole film plays like one of the singer's later, sentimental ...
Belfast Review
by Ian Freer |. Published on 20 01 2022. Release Date: 12 Nov 2021. Original Title: Belfast. Belfast, Kenneth Branagh 's semi-autobiographical take on growing up in Northern Ireland's capital ...
Jamie Dornan Goes Back to 'Belfast,' but Not Without Worry
Those good reviews from the rest of the world weren't just a hypothetical: Since its first screening at the Telluride Film Festival in late August, "Belfast" has received such fond reactions ...
Belfast Movie Review
A beautiful film that ebbs and flows with the daily living of a war. A war that takes away and leaves holes. The film stays true to its premise, viewing the civil and political disturbances in late 1960s Belfast through the lens of a 9 year old boy. I wanted a sweeping institutional breakdown of the conflict, but that is not this film.
Belfast (film)
Belfast is a 2021 British coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Kenneth Branagh.The film stars Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan and Jude Hill.The film, which Branagh has described as his "most personal", follows a young boy's childhood in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the beginning of The Troubles in 1969.
Kneecap (2024)
Kneecap: Directed by Rich Peppiatt. With Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara, DJ Próvai, Josie Walker. When fate brings Belfast teacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed 'low life scum' Naoise and Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish, they lead a movement to save their mother tongue.

Movie Reviews

Christy Lemire

Now playing

Hummingbirds

Trigger Warning

Glenn Kenny

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Ultraman: Rising

Film Credits

Belfast (2021)

Cinematographer

Latest blog posts

“This Is The Life, Isn’t It?” Martin Mull: 1943-2024

Kevin Costner: The Last of the Cornball American Directors

Leaving A Mark Behind: Kevin Costner on Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

The Hard Way, Or My Way? RIP Bill Cobbs (1934-2024)

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

site categories

Stephen Farber

Related Stories

Full credits

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Belfast Reviews

‘Belfast’ Review: What’s Black and White and ‘Roma’ All Over Again?

Peter Debruge

Related Stories

Popular on Variety

Reviewed at Telluride Film Festival, Sept. 4, 2021. (Also in Toronto Film Festival.) Running time: 97 MIN.

More from Variety

Belfast review: Kenneth Branagh's drama is soft-focus coming-of-age nostalgia

Related Articles

Belfast Review

What's the best film Kenneth Branagh has directed?

New Fall Movies 2021: 40 Films to Look Forward To

In This Article

More Reviews by Chris Tilly

Belfast skirts politics with a child’s-eye view of the Troubles

Most Popular

More in Culture

Looking for your next great read? We’re here to help.

A new book tackles the splendor and squalor of reality TV

Julian Assange’s release is still a lose-lose for press freedom

The whole time? The Boys has been making fun of Trumpers the whole time?!

Why do all the world’s best athletes do Subway commercials?

Delete your dating apps and find romance offline

There is no one weird health hack

What, if anything, is AI search good for?

What Kenya’s deadly protests are really about

How the UFC explains the USA ﻿ Audio

Kevin Costner, the American Western, and the American ego

UK Edition Change

Thank you for registering

Belfast film review: A film about the Troubles that isn’t about the Troubles at all

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Join our commenting forum

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Belfast film review: Branagh’s playful nostalgia warms the heart even as it makes blood run cold

Kenneth Branagh Goes Home in Belfast

Richard Lawson

Movie Reviews

Kenneth Branagh's autobiographical 'Belfast' never quite finds its point of view

‘Belfast’ Film Review: Kenneth Branagh Crafts a Rich, Moving Memory Piece

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

‘Belfast’: Kenneth Branagh’s Troubles-in-Mind Memoir-Drama Is a Personal Triumph

Editor’s picks

Related Stories

Homelander on 'The Boys' Was Always Meant to Be Donald Trump — But Antony Starr Doesn't Love It

‘The Umbrella Academy’ Showrunner Accused of ‘Toxic, Bullying, Manipulative, and Retaliatory Behavior’

Nigel Lythgoe Dismissed From 'All American Girl' Sexual Assault Lawsuit

Martin Mull, Comedian and Actor of 'Clue' and 'Arrested Development,' Dead at 80

Alec Baldwin Denied Bid to Dismiss 'Rust' Manslaughter Charge Over 'Destroyed' Gun

Most Popular

Verify it's you

Belfast film review: Kenneth Branagh’s memoir is black-and-white and rose-tinted all over

Donald Clarke

IN THIS SECTION

How the UFC explains the USA Audio