Belfast (2021)

No, I really didn't have St. Patrick's Day in mind when I put this right after The Banshees of Inisherin in my queue. I just happened to choose them from among recent Academy Best Picture nominees I hadn't seen yet.

In 1969, nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) has been mostly enjoying his life. He does pretty well in school and has a mutual crush on a classmate. Alas, The Troubles are beginning. His Protestant family has mostly Catholic neighbors who don't give them trouble, but Buddy, his older brother (Lewis McAskie), and their pa (Jamie Dornan) are all under pressure, especially from one thug (Colin Morgan), to join the worsening Protestant riots lest they be targeted with the Catholics. Buddy's ma (Caitríona Balfe) and pa alternately entertain the idea of moving out of Northern Ireland for safety, but Buddy would hate to leave his friends and ailing grandparents (Oscar nominees Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds).

I should mention that Pa is rarely around. He's not exactly irresponsible; he just works long hours in England to pay off tax debts. Whoever's pulling the strings seems to want to ensure he doesn't make headway. It causes a lot of strain on the marriage.

The other notable source of stress is Buddy's cousin (Lara McDonnell), who strong-arms him into petty theft for the sake of joining her gang. Oddly enough, her interactions with Buddy and his subsequent ineptitude are as close as this movie comes to comedy.

The picture is mostly in black and white, with about as much color as Schindler's List. Both go full color for the modern scenes at the start and end, but instead of using a little tint to highlight a character, Belfast also uses full color for plays and, when appropriate, onscreen movies. I guess the point is to convey temporary escape from the bleak surroundings.

Yes, we get a number of cultural references, mostly straight out of the U.S., whether Hollywood or the music scene. There are excerpts from more than one classic western, which Buddy might just find analogous to his family's situation. After all, the question of the right thing to do in a wild town is never far from their minds.

Well, that might be giving Buddy too much credit. He may get decent grades, but he doesn't come across as smart or mature much of the time. Not that I blame him; it's not the best environment to foster growth.

Only after watching did I learn that writer-director Kenneth Branagh based the story on his own childhood. That explains its credibility, apart from a smattering of anachronisms I hadn't recognized. I can see why Best Original Screenplay was its only win out of seven Oscar nods, tho it won many different awards in other categories.

If this were fully fictional, I'd expect something considerably more tragic or tragicomedic. Instead, it makes a fairly easy PG-13 viewing at 97 minutes. I liked it well enough. I'm just not sure which viewers to recommend it to especially.