A theater adage for the kind of actor who's always busy being busy (it's really a reversed adage) goes: ‘Don’t just do something, stand there!’ Guidance Kenneth Branagh, writing & directing, would have been wise to consider on this crowd-pleasing/award-winning disappointment. Call it THE WONDER YEARS: BELFAST (or is it NORTHERN IRISH-ish?), a look back without anger at his 10-yr-old self as sectarian violence breaks out in his mixed Protestant/Catholic row-house neighborhood and the family argues over a move to England. A fine idea to hang a sentimental education on*, but as director, Branagh, like our busy actor, is unable to just ‘stand there’ . . . ever. Addicted to attention grabbing stylistics that smother shot after shot in showy lens choices (fish-eye distortion a fave), off-beat camera angles & positions (not just the expected kid-level POV), shiny soft-reflective surfaces and constant gauzy foreground distraction. Even his opting for b&w, emphasized by occasional blasts of color, an easy cheat into the past. (Why not, for once, give the past its due as more vivid, more color-saturated than the present?) With the idealized blinders of a loving son’s 10-yr-old eyes, parents are strong, beautiful, brave & honest (Dad’s climactic ‘shoot-out’ plays to the soundtrack of HIGH NOON, compromised by Branagh’s technical limitations that see him fumble the coup de grâce), and Grandparents are Old Dears with the wisdom of a Hallmark Anniversary card. Thought Ciarán Hinds & Judi Dench were incapable of slobbery generic perfs? Think again.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Clear out the cobwebs & mush with John Boorman’s tartly hilarious WWII childhood memoir HOPE AND GLORY/’87. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/05/hope-and-glory-1987.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Speaking of education, a rare moment of appalling truth shows when a school teacher reassigns seating so that low performing students are in the back (to assure failure) and the smartest kids in the front row. Other than outdoor toilets, it’s the most believably Irish thing in here.
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