Movie Review: ‘Belfast’ Is Wonderfully Intimate, Deeply Personal

We’ve been watching Kenneth Branagh for more than 30 years, and he’s been having us on the whole time. We all thought he was “Johnny Posh Boy,” as he put it in a recent interview. Now that he’s 60, he’s inclined to discuss the splendid deception that is his life. He draws back the curtain and shows us who he really is in the lovely and affecting cinematic roman à clef, Belfast.

Branagh made two of the finest Shakespeare films (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing). He married posh Emma Thompson, then moved on to the even posher Helena Bonham Carter, the great-granddaughter of a prime minister. (It was only H. H. Asquith, but still). Branagh epitomizes upper-crust English ease.

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Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

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We’ve been watching Kenneth Branagh for more than 30 years, and he’s been having us on the whole time. We all thought he was “Johnny Posh Boy,” as he put it in a recent interview. Now that he’s 60, he’s inclined to discuss the splendid deception that is his life. He draws back the curtain and shows us who he really is in the lovely and affecting cinematic roman à clef, Belfast.

Branagh made two of the finest Shakespeare films (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing). He married posh Emma Thompson, then moved on to the even posher Helena Bonham Carter, the great-granddaughter of a prime minister. (It was only H. H. Asquith, but still). Branagh epitomizes upper-crust English ease.