I don't know if this is really a fair review, considering I turned this movie off after a solid 30 minutes.. 🤣 but Belfast literally won Academy Awards and Baftas among others..🤔 since I turned it off I have googled a little and it seems like the story is going to pick up.. but I just feel so pissed off and disappointed that I wanted to give the honest review based on this initial experience. If I can ever grit my teeth hard enough to endure more of it, i'll update if my opinions change..

If you don't know by now, i'm from Northern Ireland.. this movie is my history, my life, my heritage. I was born when the Troubles still raged, pre-peace process, and was raised in the thick of it I guess you could say, witnessing first and second hand violence and sectarianism. Inter-generational impacts still follow me around, and the long consequences of the conflict that still impact on society in various ways today. I'll be honest, i'm still salty about it all, like many of us, it's hard to "move on". 

Belfast starts with some modern day iconic scenes of the city itself, and this really made me feel good and made me proud of my wee country. The opening scenes were accompanied by music by Van Morrison, and as soon as it started I said to my husband "Well, who else!". Van the Man is an iconic NI singer and musician, his career has spanned decades and his music has shaped generations. Like most my age, I can say "my dad was a huge fan of Van", and i'm no stranger to his music. For me, this was the only good to come from this movie 🤭🤷‍♀️

Here you can enjoy one of his classics, which apparently also features later in the movie.. though I never got so far..

Belfast begins with the forced displacement of Catholics from a Protestant area.. in reality it happened in mixed streets all over Belfast. Sometimes Catholics were displaced, other times the Protestants were displaced. Even this was quite a simplified and dull narrative, but the really disappointing thing to me was how inauthentic it all felt. 

The set was so poor! The belfast streets LOOKED LIKE A MOVIE SET! It wasn't dirty or cold or wet, there was no impending doom or deprivation felt.. it just felt so fraudulent, clean and polite. The riot scenes (which would have originally occurred on Bombay Street) were laughable.. it was like "get out of your house you Catholic" when anyone here will know the derogatory abuse and true violence. I know there have to be limits to make the history palatable, but it just felt far too Hollywood, and completely lacking to me. 

Soon after we see the young boys sent to church. The Protestant minister, supposed to show the early days of late Reverand Ian Paisley, but he did a piss poor job and it was much more like a Paisley skit than genuine acting. The "sweat" of him was so over the top, it was like he just finished running a marathon. Now, Presbyterian churches are very "hell and brimstone", but this was so over the top it was comical. Honestly, I laughed at how uneasy and bad it was! I'm not sure if it was intended as a form of satire, but even then it did a bad job. 

Honestly so much of the first half hour I was just rolling my eyes or cringing. The accents weren't as bad as I expected but there were a few obvious mistakes that natives would have noticed. Nobody in the whole of Northern Ireland talks about "your Pa".. as their dad, it's "yer da", so I suppose they must have been some American actors.. 

And by then, I gave up watching. The movie wasn't entertaining or causing any learning or critical thought about the history, other than how bad the movie itself was. I do hope some day to watch more, but for now... my mama told me, there'd be days like this 😉