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.
