With ‘Death on the Nile’ delayed, Kenneth Branagh gets personal in ‘Belfast’

As a director, Kenneth Branagh has never shied away from tackling big subjects, whether it’s the Shakespearean heft of his 1996 “Hamlet” or the comic-book spectacle of 2011’s “Thor.” But with his latest film, “Belfast,” he tries to get his arms around something in its own way even more daunting: his own childhood. Set in Branagh’s native Northern Ireland in 1969, the film, which hits theaters Nov. 12, follows the exuberant, imaginative 9-year-old Buddy as he and his family navigate the turbulence of “the Troubles,” finding moments of love, joy and humor even as the conflict rips apart their close-knit community. “I really felt that there was a quality of concentration in the audience that I haven’t heard for a long time,” Branagh said at Telluride. “I mean, if there was one cough in that screening last night, I’d be amazed.” The film follows a roller-coaster period of major studio filmmaking for Branagh, from the highs of box office hit “Murder on the Orient Express” — in which he also starred as Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot — to the low of big-budget bust “Artemis Fowl,” which was unceremoniously dropped onto Disney+ early on during the COVID-19 pandemic.