Except for a shot of Buddy reading a comic book about Thor— Branagh directed Marvel’s 2011 film version—there is no reference to the A-lister he’d become from 1989’s “Henry V” to his upcoming reprise as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in “Death On the Nile.”
When the filmmaker and actor’s name pops up, you likely – and fortunately, for his sake – recall the man’s respected string of Shakespeare adaptations: Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and his gargantuan Hamlet.
In 1990 at the age of 30, Kenneth Branagh scored two surprise Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Director for his filmmaking feature debut, "Henry V," which made him the golden boy of that moment.
In its headlong energy and mixture of the intimate and grand, we can see how Buddy would later grow up to be the director who made Shakespeare adaptations like “Henry V,” where you can feel the mud and steel, but also the poetry.
Belfast is a tremendously personal film from Kenneth Branagh, who used to reliably make awards-worthy Shakespeare adaptations such as Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet , and plenty more.
Having won this year’s TIFF audience award, writer/director Kenneth Branagh’s ("Henry V," "All Is True") paean to ‘those who stayed’ and ‘those who left’ is heavily favored in Oscar’s Best Picture race, but while the film, beautifully shot in black and white (by cinematographer Haris Zambarloukoshaving), has some charming moments, Branagh’s failure to establish his point of view as belonging solely to Buddy renders too many aspects of his film inauthentic.