Buddy (Jude Hill) is just an ordinary boy growing up in Belfast, playing stickball in the street, his mother, calling him in for ‘tea’ or supper. But his life is juxtaposed by the tumultuous times; the surrounding rallies, bombings and beatings in 1969, when Protestants want Catholics out of their neighborhoods. Poor, little, Buddy seems to be drowning daily in religion.Thank God he’s Protestant, though he’s still caught in the constant cross hairs of fear and anger. And we can feel his frustration and his troubled mind trying to understand what’s happening and relying on his family to help him to learn.
Buddy’s father, Pa (Jamie Dornan) works construction in London, so for most of the time Buddy’s left at home with his brother Will (Lewis McAskie) and his Ma (Caitriona Balfe, Outlander.) Though when his father is around, he’s eloquent and gentle. Buddy’s Granny (Judi Dench) is always within range as is his Pop (Ciaran Hinds.)
But it’s the mere mention of the cinema that lights up Buddy’s usually unsettled face. John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Hollywood become his saviors set against a backdrop of political turmoil.
And so goes this delightful gem of a poignant semi-autobiographical love letter that mirrors the life of its writer/director Kenneth Branagh, who grew up in Belfast and went on to be Knighted, and the winner of three BAFTAs, two Emmys and several nominations for Academy Awards and Golden Globes.
Worthy of another Oscar and BAFTA nomination, Branagh shouldn’t do anything else in life but direct. This is his Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma. Nostalgic and complex, the cinematography is brilliant – a tight eye on everything so that we experience – the streets, the mobs, the minister, the movies – and even the casket larger than life through the eyes of Buddy.
The choice to shoot the film in black and white adds a rainy, grainy and gritty texture to the hopelessness of childhood in Belfast. Only when Buddy has a family outing to the cinema to see Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang does the technicolor bring him to life; albeit the artistry was always there…
Despite his parents drowning in debt, back taxes and broken windows, they’re talented, cultured…keeping Buddy buoyant. Books, movies, dancing, singing, they instill the hope of what could be if only they’d move to England to begin a new life. Of course, Buddy can’t imagine such a transition. He’d have no friends, no cousins and no Catherine the Catholic girl schoolmate he’s in love with.
But, the last lines of the movie say it all: For the ones who stayed. For the ones who left. And for all the ones who were lost.
Truly a small audience darling of a film wrapped with a giant heart of possibility when love and hope prevail. And, your son grows up to be a Kenneth Branagh .