[8.2/10] Sometimes the only thing harder than leaving is staying. The working class folk who populate *Belfast* are torn between the communal bonds and shared history that makes them want to stay forever, and the sectarian strife and lack of opportunity that practically forces them to other shores.

This is a profoundly Irish story, rooted in a specific time, place, and people. But you don’t have to hail from Belfast itself to appreciate the central tension at its core. The sharpest choice writer-director Kenneth Branaugh makes is to center the audience’s understanding in both sides of the debate personified by Ma and Pa. Most of us can sympathize with a tug of war between what is known and familiar despite any of its foibles, and what is alien and a little scary, yet promising despite its differences.

The second sharpest choice is to root the perspective of the film through the eyes of a child. One doesn’t have to squint too hard to suspect this is Branagh retelling a fictionalized version of his own childhood, and the vividness of the piece befits that. But anchoring the story in a young boy’s perspective also softens and sweetens the piece, sanding down the edges of deadly conflicts, money troubles, and marital strife in the throes of a wee lad who just wants to do his school project alongside his little crush.

That softness comes from young Buddy’s naivete. In his own way, he worries about the ongoing skirmishes between the Protestants and Catholics in his neighborhood. He squirms at his parents fighting, misses his pa when he’s working far away, and doesn’t want to leave his hometown. But he also frets over an overly literal interpretation of a sermon about which road to take to Heaven, and bungles an attempt at candy bar theft after being coaxed by his cousin, and studies hard for his math test in order to sit closer to the little girl he likes. The juxtaposition of these grown-up problems and the misadventures of childhood makes the film roundly amiable despite some rough subject matter.

It also doesn’t hurt that *Belfast* is gorgeous to look at. Branagh and company opt for a black and white palette, and the irony of muting the colors is that it makes many of the more dramatic scenes -- featuring explosions and stand-offs and general tumult -- that much more vivid and striking. The choice to render film and theater in color (though not T.V., note the jab there), is a touch cheesy, but still conveys the enticing allure of the stage and screen to the young stand-in for the film’s director.

Beyond color-grading gimmickry, though, director of photography Haris Zambarloukos does extraordinary work framing the film’s many beautiful tableaus. The film opens and closes with a sense of danger and vulnerability amid utter chaos that, frankly, seem more in line with the work of Martin Scorsese than Branagh’s more staid filmography. But Branagh and Zambarloukos find all sorts of interesting stagings and ways to show different layers and depths to make the simple world of Buddy and his family come alive with visual interest.

The choices serve the meaning of the piece too, though. There’s frequent shots looking up from below which, while not exactly from Buddy’s perspective, help situate in the audience in looking at these grown-ups as almost larger-than-life figures, close and yet a bit distant.

Only they never shoot Granny and Pop that way. The greatest treat in the film is the relationship Buddy shares with his grandparents. They’re always close, almost always at the same level as their young grandson, to signify what these charming seniors mean to the little boy. Judi Dench makes a lot out of a little, with her mere reaction to the guileless question of whether she ever visited the Shangri-La she saw on film when she was young being a one-scene tour de force. The banter and dynamic between her and her husband is colorful and delightful.

But the heart of the picture is Pop, Buddy’s grandfather. Ciarán Hinds does incredible work in the role. He’s full of both hot air and genuine wisdom in the way all grandparents ought to be. The way he guides his grandson through issues as mundane as how to meet the young lady he’s sweet on and as grand as how to hold onto who you are in a strange, unknown place charms and touches the heart. His death is a piercing moment, both because it removes the nurturing figure Buddy wished to hold onto more than he wanted to be the world’s greatest or marry his tender crush, and because it severs one of the strongest ties his family has to the titular city.

That’s just another pebble on the scale pushing Buddy and his family out to London. There’s reasons to stay in Belfast: the community, the history, the culture that has sustained Ma and Pa since they were wee ones themselves. Going to London or Sydney or Vancouver would mean being an outsider, someone apart from friends and family and all you’ve ever known. But on the other side is the growing risk of poverty, the opportunities for security that lie elsewhere, and most of all the impending threats to life and limb in Northern Ireland amidst The Troubles.

The last factor is enough. The climax of the film is a nail-biting scene where the entire family narrowly escapes a fracas with their lives. The threat, the relief, the lingering peril, the loss of one of the great ties to this place, are enough to send a wary Buddy and company to their next destination, uprooting them from this one, while they nevertheless maintain their ecumenical spirit.

It’s not an easy decision or transition, for anyone involved. The ironic beauty of *Belfast* is that it celebrates the wonders and joys of this scratched-out corner of the Earth in endearing detail, at the same time it makes a compelling case for leaving it behind. It is both celebration and elegy, a commemoration of a place of meaning and spirit, and an affirmation of why so many felt they had no choice but to seek their fortunes elsewhere.