Kenneth Branagh’s new film may come as a surprise to those who know him as the poster boy (or should that be whipping boy?) for 80s Oxbridge luvviedom.
Belfast sees the director swap Shakespearean theatrics for a loving homage to his working class Irish childhood – and it’s set to be the talk of the town come the Oscars.
Meanwhile, Guillermo del Toro follows up his own awards magnet A Shape of Water with a dark and twisty trip down Nightmare Alley, and a father passes on life lessons in A Journal for Jordan.
New releases
Belfast
This child’s-eye view of life in 1960s Ireland represents the most personal work yet from writer-director Kenneth Branagh, who drew from his early memories to tell the story (his family moved to Reading to escape the Troubles when Branagh was nine years old).
Set in Belfast in 1969, the film stars newcomer Jude Hill as Buddy (a proxy for the young Ken), with Jamie Dornan and Catriona Balfe (Outlander) playing his loving parents and Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench on grandparent duty.
Branagh’s crowd-pleasing coming-of-age tale celebrates the joy, love and laughter of their everyday family life, even as the escalating tensions in the city force Buddy’s parents to consider making a heart-wrenching decision.
Cert 12A, 98 mins | |
Cineworld, City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
From Fri Jan 21 | |
More details |
Nightmare Alley
A new film from Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro is always an event – but don’t expect any fantastical creatures or marauding kaiju in his latest, which sees him enter the murky world of film noir.
A sense of the uncanny persists, though, in its 1940s carnival setting – which serves as the perfect hideout for troubled charmer Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), looking to lay low after fleeing a murder scene.
Befriending clairvoyant Zeena (Toni Collette) and her husband Pete (David Strathairn, Nomadland), he spies a lucrative money-making scheme on the mentalism circuit, teaming up with psychiatrist Lilith (Cate Blanchett) to con the great and good of New York City – chief among them ruthless tycoon Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water).
Cert 15, 150 mins | |
Cineworld, City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
From Fri Jan 21 | |
More details |
A Journal for Jordan
Fresh from slaying ’em literally and figuratively in The Tragedy of Macbeth, Denzel Washington steps back behind the camera here for the first time since his acclaimed 2016 drama Fences.
Based on a memoir by journalist Dana Canedy, this emotionally charged drama stars Michael B. Jordan as Sergeant Charles Monroe King, a soldier who starts writing a journal for his infant son while he is on deployment in Iraq.
Chanté Adams plays Canedy as she looks back at her unlikely romance with Charles, aided by the journal of advice and life lessons he left behind.
Cert 12A, 131 mins | |
Cineworld, Vue | |
From Fri Jan 21 | |
More details |
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Other screenings
From Free Solo to last year’s The Alpinist, documentaries featuring daredevil mountain climbers have been something of a cinematic trend in recent years, and it’s not hard to understand why – the hands-over-your-eyes spectacle of watching a determined climber tackling a vertiginous cliff face is a natural fit for the big screen.
New film Torn, showing at City Screen throughout the week, deals with similar subject matter but from a different angle, with the challenges here being emotional rather than physical – its focus is on the family of Alex Lowe, a legendary mountaineer who was buried in an avalanche in 1999.
Lowe’s body was not found until 17 years later, and the film follows his family as they work through long-buried feelings about their loss.
There’s another documentary on offer at City Screen on Weds 26th – Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road sees the famously reclusive Beach Boys singer look back over his career with Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine, while an array of talking heads line up to pay homage.
With its eagerly-awaited (and, if anything, even more critically adored) sequel due out on 4th Feb, City Screen are also giving arthouse fans a chance to revisit director Joanna Hogg’s semi-autobiographical 2019 drama The Souvenir, which follows the intense romance between a young film student (Honor Swinton Byrne, daughter of Tilda) and a charismatic older man (Tom Burke, TV’s Cormoran Strike) – you can catch it on Tues 25th and Thurs 27th.
Meanwhile, if you feel the need, the need for Speed, you’re in luck – the Keanu Reeves 90s action classic is back on the big screen at Cineworld on Mon 24th (sadly not followed by a screening of Father Ted‘s unofficial threequel – Dennis Hopper’s got nothing on Pat Mustard…).
And finally, Cineworld’s budget family-friendly offerings this week are The Boss Baby 2, Ron’s Gone Wrong and Paw Patrol: The Movie (all showing on Sat 22nd and Sun 23rd, tickets £2.50), while Vue have Hey Duggee at the Movies 2 (Sat 22nd/Sun 23rd, £2.49), and City Screen’s Kids’ Club offering comes courtesy of Snoopy and Charlie Brown (Sat 22nd, £3.00).