Mary McNamara: 'Belfast' isn't my favorite movie in the Oscar race. But it gave me the most hope
"Belfast" was not my favorite movie of 2021 (not that anyone was asking) but it is the film that gave me the most hope, and at a time when hope is worth more than rubies, or even an Oscar campaign.
Told from a child's point of view, "Belfast" is a deceptively small and simple movie that manages to do something extraordinary: examine the trauma that ethnic and sectarian violence inflicts not only on the group being targeted but on those members of the "privileged" majority who want no part in it.
It's a long way from 1993's "In the Name of the Father," the last Troubles-related film to get a slew of Oscar nominations.
Or maybe not.
Based on the wrongful imprisonment of the Guildford Four, "In the Name of the Father" follows British authorities' torture and imprisonment of Gerry Conlon, a Belfast man mistakenly accused, and convicted, of an IRA bombing. The film was so rigorous in its depiction of
