Northern Ireland family’s troubles feel universal in ‘Belfast’

The simplicity of the character’s youthful understanding of events means the director also doesn’t have to do any heavy interpretive lifting; the film barely delves into politics. Buddy’s family refuses to buy into the movement that attacks their Catholic neighbors, but the gang keeps coming back to try to involve them. The perspective of “Belfast” reflects the personal refraction of huge historical events within the walls of one’s own home.

Between the dangers on the street and a better job offer in England, Buddy’s parents face a conundrum — should they leave behind everything they know for an unknown but potentially better life? Again, young Buddy’s interpretation of the stakes is sweetly small scale; he wants a chance to finish his school project with his crush.  

When Branagh allows the film some subtlety, it is particularly moving. Buddy’s impossibly gorgeous parents, played by Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan, are two actors whose most famous roles, in “Outlander” and “Fifty Shades of Grey,” respectively, are decidedly spicier. Both fit well into the 1960s. The way that a young kid sees his parents as somewhat remote, glamorized and idealized was beautifully expressed. Grownup viewers can extrapolate the adults’ marital strife from the bits that Buddy witnesses, but the film focuses primarily on the boy’s perspective.

A beautiful and emotional film that is inherently moving, Branagh tips the scales to the cheesy with an all-Van Morrison soundtrack. Twas a bridge too far. The messaging was hardly complicated to begin with, and we hardly needed Van Morrison to tell us how to feel. More successful were the appearances of other films, from Westerns on TV to a memorable and delightful scene when the entire family goes to see “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” 

  But if you can tamp down your more Scrooge-like impulses, you will fall in love with the cherubic Buddy, at least one of his parents and definitely both grandparents. As befits a director who is also a renowned actor, Branagh’s main achievement in “Belfast ” is his actors’ performances. Dornan gives us a father who is warm and opaque at the same time, while Balfe is emotional to a sometimes excessive degree, which feels all too real. Dench, who so often portrays some kind of royalty, rules only her own humble home in this film. It is poignant to see her quiet strength here, and Hinds is achingly good as her husband and Buddy’s grandad. Their family is as complex and as simple as anyone’s, and the story of “Belfast” is full of beautiful and universally recognizable moments.

“Belfast” is playing at the Crescent Theater beginning next week. 

New This Week:

“The 355”: When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Oscar-nominated Jessica Chastain) will need to join forces with rival German agent Marie (Diane Kruger), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o) and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Oscar-winner Penélope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Fan Bingbing), who is tracking their every move. As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the wealth and glamour of Shanghai, the quartet of women will forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world — or get them killed. All multiplex theaters.

“RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)”: A fictitious story about two legendary revolutionaries and their journey away from home before they started fighting for their country, India, in the 1920s. In Hindi and Telugu. AMC Mobile 1.