Belfast

Whimsical in the most imaginative sense, their conversations make it very easy to give [Kenneth Branagh] the benefit of the doubt. If the reality was not like this, it should have been.

The film, with a soundtrack of mostly familiar but appropriate Van Morrison songs, is clearly a labour of love, and the final scenes are immensely moving.

Kenneth Branagh's unabashedly feelgood memoir of growing up in Belfast as the Troubles erupted in the late 1960s suffers from a problem of perspective.

I loved it.

The film is manipulative, and sentimental, and it does sometimes feel derivative... But it is also sincere, affectionate, involving and presses its buttons so deftly I welled up exactly as I was supposed to. At least three times.

A twinkly-eyed childhood memoir - and rigorously fashioned to be an Oscar frontrunner.

It is the mix of that tone and the fantastic filmmaking within it that elevates it from a lovely film to a gorgeous piece of cinematic history that is sure to please all audiences.

While it is admirable how the director achieves all this without relying on superfluous artistic pretensions, the film is not entirely successful in capturing the complexity of the sociopolitical conflict... [Full review in Spanish]

Belfast is a simple story about complex times. Those looking for a deeply political film will not find it&#59; instead, it is a tender piece about family and place. Branagh’s most personal film is his best in a very long time.

Belfast has its moments – most of them featuring Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds as Buddy's grandparents – but the film grates as inauthentic and contrived.