‘Belfast’ Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story of The Troubles in Northern Ireland

Actor/director Kenneth Branagh’s latest effort behind the camera might be the most contemplative of his movies yet. It’s also one of his most controversial. After a career spanning Shakespeare adaptations to directing the first Thor movie for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Belfast is a straightforward story based on his own childhood.

Or, at least, the Academy Award-nominated plot is largely straightforward. The setting — in the midst of a pivotal flare-up of violence during The Troubles — is anything but. The disconnect between the characters and the largely unexplained violence around them has become a subject of criticism from some viewers.

Belfast presents a simple story of childhood inside a complex backdrop

Growing up in the titular city was no simple coming-of-age story. He grew up as The Troubles flared up once more in Ireland, with a conflagration erupting right in Branagh’s neighborhood. The 1969 return to violence saw his predominantly Protestant neighborhood erupt into riots, as English loyalists and Irish nationalists fought during the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against Irish Catholics.

The result is a semi-autobiographical story of a childhood in sudden upheaval. It’s a deeply personal film not only for Branagh, but for the cast and crew that contributed. The Hollywood Reporter notes that, while the script didn’t reflect her own life directly, editor Úna Ní Dhonghaíle pulled heavily from her own experiences in that time and place.

The cast is stacked with great English and Northern Irish actors. The story, in terms of its substance, is exceedingly simple. But the political underpinnings of a situation like The Troubles, which remains a fraught issue to this day, mean no story told in this vein could be without criticism from those who lived it. Vox went as far as saying the film skirts politics to a fault.

Some Irish viewers find the depiction of The Troubles in Belfast too simplistic

Branagh’s low-key, often charmingly funny depiction of his upbringing in Northern Ireland includes a depiction of a sudden wave of violence near the start of the film. It doesn’t simply do away with The Troubles. But, as Irish Central notes, it doesn’t really do much with it, either. The film moves on, more interested in hazy depictions of growing up than what any of this means in any concrete terms.

Branaugh’s stand-in family are Protestants who get along with their Catholic neighbors. They have no reaction beyond befuddlement to the violence that rips their quiet neighborhood apart, ruining the lives of their friends and neighbors. This puts Belfast in an awkward position, leveraging an incendiary and very real piece of history to tell an almost completely unrelated story.

Kenneth Branagh didn’t intend for Belfast to be a history of The Troubles

Despite the gap in storytelling, Branagh’s latest has resonated strongly with global audiences. Its airy take on getting the feeling of being a kid forced to understand the world a bit sooner than they probably should is a universal concept. It’s obvious that this is the director sharing a piece of himself, trying to capture how he felt, and apparently, that involves shying away from saying much about The Troubles at all.

Still, it’s hard not to default to criticism. There have been many films and television shows touching on various sides of these sensitive events. Notably, the sitcom Derry Girls manages to also tell a coming of age story, as an outright comedy no less, without leaning away from the events of the day.

Lovable characters on that show sometimes say awful things about perfectly decent people on the other side of the socio-political divide. IRA members and die-hard loyalists alike are portrayed in varying ways, all politically grounded. It only seems to enrich the comedy and the stark realism that lurks quietly beneath all the broad comedy. Belfast, for all its awards attention, doesn’t have quite the nuanced ability to navigate dangerous political waters as this charming sitcom does.