Kenneth Branagh's New Movie Has A Touching Thor Easter Egg
Belfast, Kenneth Branagh’s latest movie, includes a heart-warming Easter egg that references his 2011 Phase One MCU film, Thor. Shot in black and white, Belfast is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age dramedy set in the 1960s and centers on Buddy (Jude Hill), a nine-year-old boy growing up amidst the Northern Ireland conflict. Branagh wrote the film during lockdown last year, and drew heavily from his own childhood experiences, and considers it his most personal film to date.
Branagh would find early success on stage and screen acting in and directing many of Shakespeare’s works. Over the last decade, however, he’s largely shifted his film output towards mainstream Hollywood movies such as the Disney live-action Cinderella and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. The start of this career change was the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s fourth film, Thor. Seen at the time as a risky character to adapt within the grounded world Iron Man had established, Branagh was able to bring his Shakespearian sensibilities to Asgard’s royal family and sell audiences on a space God of Thunder with a magical hammer back when the MCU was still finding its feet.
While Belfast does not directly state that Buddy is the young Branagh, the future director was born in Belfast, living there for nine years till his family moved to England to escape ‘The Troubles." Despite the backdrop of the violent unrest of the time, the film is full of humor and touching scenes, one of which finds Buddy sitting outside on the pavement, reading a Thor comic book. Audience members watching the movie at the Toronto Film Festival (via Variety) were delighted with the reference to the Marvel superhero and applauded the moment.
While his superhero movie is not without its detractors, Branagh successfully gets to the core of the characters during the Asgard scenes, which are full of powerful performances from Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Anthony Hopkins (Odin), and Tom Hiddleston as scene-stealing trickster Loki. The inclusion of Buddy reading a Thor comic book in the street is a sweet nod to the future filmmaker's passion for the thunder god at an early age. It’s not the only reference to his filmography in the movie either; an Agatha Christie novel is present in Buddy’s bedroom, a nod to his Poirot adaptations Murder on the Orient Express and the upcoming Death on the Nile.
Despite not returning for a Thor sequel, the Marvel Easter egg also shows that he still has a fondness for the character. Branagh’s career as a director has been a mixture of highs (Henry V, Hamlet) and lows (Artemis Fowl). Belfast appears to be a return to form for the director and an early front runner for awards season. General audiences will have a chance to judge for themselves when it hits theatres on November 12th.