{"id":2868,"date":"2022-03-17T18:19:40","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T18:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2022-03-17T18:19:58","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T18:19:58","slug":"oscars-2022-belfast-and-the-batman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/03\/17\/oscars-2022-belfast-and-the-batman\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscars 2022: Belfast (and The Batman)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here be spoilers – you have been warned.<\/p>\n

Belfast<\/em> is this year\u2019s \u201csmall\u201d film, and like previous such Best Picture nominees (think Brooklyn<\/em>, Lady Bird<\/em>, The Kids Are All Right<\/em>) it doesn\u2019t really have much of a chance when it comes to Best Picture. But it does have a bit more heft than some of those, firstly because it\u2019s a Kenneth Branagh film and secondly because the background of The Troubles anchors it to something a bit more meaningful.<\/p>\n

Branagh, serving as writer for only the second time after In the Bleak Midwinter<\/em>, has crafted a story drawn from his own memories of growing up in Northern Ireland. As such it\u2019s quite a personal film, but I often find him rather an anonymous director, capable of slinging the camera around if he feels like it, but rarely stamping much personality on the material. Here, he manages to create an intimate family portrait, with some occasional flashes of directorial inspiration, such as having the movies that the characters go and see film the frame with colour, whereas everything else is shot in crisp black-and-white<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s an actor\u2019s film first and foremost and Branagh\u2019s cast easily rise to the challenge. Catriona Balfe leads from the top, turning what could have been a mere obstacle into a complex and relatable character. Jamie Dornan\u2019s straight-arrow dad has a little less to work with, but he\u2019s always a compelling presence, and Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench somehow make a believable couple despite the almost twenty-year age gap between them.<\/p>\n

Walking away with the picture though is ten-year-old Jude Hill as Buddy who is never less than completely convincing, with his wide earnest eyes taking in the delights and horrors that life presents him with. What the film isn\u2019t is in any way subtle. The child\u2019s eye view of adult concerns is often used to hint at deeper themes, but here everything is laid out as clear as can be, and if anything the need to always have Buddy in the frame eventually becomes a distraction. And it walks a perilous tightrope between heartfelt sincerity and mawkish sentimentality, tipping over into the latter as Dornan stares impassively out of the window of a departing bus to the syrupy strains of Van Morrison.<\/p>\n

Belfast<\/em> is a perfectly charming way to spend an evening, it\u2019s impeccably made and it doesn\u2019t outstay its welcome. But it doesn\u2019t confront any deeper truths about life, love, family or politics along the way. Like its paternal hero, it won\u2019t get involved and it won\u2019t take sides.<\/p>\n

I also took in The Batman<\/strong>, which should have been right up my street, and has been getting strong reviews. Maybe I just wasn\u2019t in the mood, but it didn\u2019t work for me at all. Nothing seemed to gel from Robert Pattinson’s absurd Robert Smith-like emo Bruce Wayne to Zoe Kravitz\u2019s ridiculous nosekini balaclava to Riddler\u2019s secret plan to assemble a secret militia via the secret means of public YouTube video comments. The entire movie seemed to consist of people walking through shadows, reciting enormous paragraphs of complicated exposition at each other, and then sinking back into the gloom again, while a monotonous soundtrack continually thumped away.<\/p>\n

The nadir was the near-death of Alfred, who seemed to be largely the architect of his own misfortune (although lucky for all concerned that the Riddler chose to try and knock off Bruce Wayne remotely rather than in person the way he did all his other targets). The explosion which takes out a wing of Stately Wayne Manor when Alfred blithely opens an extremely suspicious lookin package only renders him comatose, and Bruce is there when he finally wakes up \u2013 and immediately begins info-dumping again like nothing has happened. That\u2019s also his last appearance in the film.<\/p>\n

Quite why it\u2019s had such good notices isn\u2019t entirely clear to me. Maybe I missed something, maybe other people really hated Ben Affleck\u2019s version, or maybe the critical consensus will move over time. Or maybe I\u2019m just the outlier who doesn\u2019t appreciate good Batmanning when I see it. Regardless, I\u2019m not in a hurry to see the inevitable sequel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here be spoilers – you have been warned. Belfast is this year\u2019s \u201csmall\u201d film, and like previous such Best Picture nominees (think Brooklyn, Lady Bird, The Kids Are All Right) it doesn\u2019t really have much of a chance when it comes to Best Picture. But it does have a bit more heft than some of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,11],"tags":[529,13,19],"class_list":["post-2868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-the-cinema","category-culture","tag-2022-oscars","tag-oscars","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-Kg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2872,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/2872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}