Film Reviews

November 1, 2024

Steve McQueen's "Blitz" tells the harrowing yet sometimes affected story of two parallel adventures. I write "adventures," but this isn't meant in the sense that the composed events are enviable, glamorous, or fun. Indeed, the journeys on which the film's two main characters find themselves are grave, perilous, and sure to have traumatic rippling effects, but they're adventures nonetheless because of the sheer magnitude and precarious nature of the undertakings they must endure, physically and emotionally. Framing the terrible period known as the Blitzkrieg (German for "lightning war") as an odyssey for two people dealing with its ramifications on the ground level not only makes the real-life history accessible but also allows the film to strike us in a way that's similar to an engrossing novel.

As the pointed title makes clear, the setting is the Blitz, the eight-month bombing campaign by Nazi Germany against the United Kingdom that started in September of 1940. During this time, an almost daily onslaught of air attacks pummeled British cities and towns, with London taking the brunt of the hits. "Blitz" pulls no punches in recreating the unimaginable shakings and ensuing wreckage by way of enormous sets and grand, wholly convincing wide and aerial shots of the blackened cityscapes, which give way to dusty and collapsed interiors. Yorick Le Saux's cinematography powerfully captures Adam Stockhausen's vast production design and Anna Pinnock's intricate set decoration to the point that "Blitz" paints a palpably grim and terrifying state.

Given the dire circumstances, it's no wonder hopeless parents made the impossible decision to send their children away to the countryside, where they’d presumably be safe. One of these parents is Rita (Saoirse Ronan), a single white mother to the slightly stocky yet strong and athletic George (Elliott Heffernan). George is of mixed race, and we learn in a flashback that his father, Marcus (CJ Beckford), is a Grenadian who was deported before George was born. At nine years old, George is still a child, but he's at that tender age between dependency and love for his mom and grandad (Paul Weller) and realizing his own agency, the latter of which he's about to get a crash course in.

Rita is among hundreds of other women barely making ends meet working at a munitions factory, where it appears she and her cohorts are still expected to wear dresses, makeup, and high heels, despite the sweaty work. Following a recent bombing that sent her and George to take cover in the underground tube stop near their East London neighborhood (tube stations were a common shelter during the Blitz), she decides to send George away on a train with other children. Naturally, George doesn't take kindly to the news, going so far as to tell Rita he hates her, before storming off without saying goodbye. Angry and alone, and fending off the racism of other kids, George decides to take matters into his own hands. Mid-journey, he jumps off the train and begins making his way back to London, initially on foot.

It was at this point "Blitz" began shaping itself into old-fashioned historical fiction, with George's pre-adolescent adventure at the center. I drew parallels between his story and those of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, where if the pre-Civil War era served as the backdrop for Sawyer and Finn, the Blitz surrounded George. In this sense, we can admire writer-director McQueen for putting a twist on the conventional World War II drama by primarily framing it through the eyes of a boy instead of the usual adult male. And while there's still a palpable graveness and solemnity to George's situation, there's also an innocence, even a playfulness, as when George befriends a trio of brothers on a train headed back to London and they all sit atop the car and bask in the wind and sun. Given McQueen's reputation for making films with heavy and uncompromising adult themes ("Shame," "12 Years a Slave"), we might have expected his take on the Blitz to follow suit, but it's told mostly from young George's perspective, which offers us something different from the genre.

But this isn't just George's tale. He shares screen time almost equally with Rita, who has her own burdens to bear even before she learns that George is missing and sets out to find him, a task that, in 1940, and in a war zone no less, must have felt insurmountable. Like George, Rita is also sad and lonely, and rather than socialize with her friends (we learn that despite the fact air raids could happen at any moment, people still got dressed up and went out to bars and restaurants), she volunteers in an underground shelter, where the occupants, many of them strangers, embrace each other during the bombardments. Rita's choices and struggles are another way McQueen shows us how the Blitz affected people at the everyday level.

"Blitz" is a compelling film to be sure, one that holds our attention as it weaves across various points in time and in between its two present storylines. In addition to the outstanding visuals, its other notable virtues include Peter Sciberras' editing (there's a particularly dynamic scene in the munitions factory that shows the making of a bomb from start to finish; and on more than one occasion, Sciberras effectively employs McQueen's signature long take); Hans Zimmer's haunting and poignant score, which I would encourage viewers to listen to as the closing credits roll; and the stellar acting from the two leads. Ronan has always been one to deliver sincere, all-in performances, and even though she still appears young, she's perfectly convincing as a dedicated yet very distraught mother. And first-timer Heffernan, who is bound to be the film's most memorable asset, is simply remarkable as George. He turns his character into one of the most multidimensional in recent memory. We see him be sweet, mean, commanding, fearful, remorseful, and prideful, and through it all, his emotions render authentic, never forced or performative.

As complex and genuine as "Blitz" often feels, it is not without shortcomings. Some parts of the story ring contrived, simplified, or incomplete. At one point, for instance, George befriends a Black air raid warden from Nigeria named Ife (Benjamin Clémentine), and there's a moment when Ife must show his authority to not only white people, but also an Arab man. His ensuing speech is too reductive to be believable, and George's sudden embrace of his own Blackness, which he has hitherto now shied away from, was too neat and convenient.

Another problematic development unfolds when George is abducted and threatened by a gang of looters led by the abusive Albert (Stephen Graham) and droopy-faced Beryl (Kathy Burke). While history suggests such reprehensible behavior took place (pillagers would break into bombed out shops and other establishments and steal things like jewelry, sometimes off of dead bodies), McQueen paints the perpetrators more as caricatures than real people; it's one of the few moments when we think McQueen is too forcefully pushing our buttons just to get a rise out of us.

We're also not quite sure what to make of Rita's friendship with Jack (Harris Dickinson), a white British officer she asks for help in finding George. We can sort of detect a budding romance between them, but the film doesn’t properly explore it, and it just sort of dissolves. And one scene is perplexingly absent altogether. Without giving too much away, it involves George making a heroic decision, but the film doesn't show us the ramifications of it. Instead, George's moment of would-be vindication is distilled down to just a few words of dialogue, which makes it, and the subsequent final scene, feel hastily put together and anticlimactic.

Still, despite its flaws, "Blitz" is often shattering, and its drama and presentation hook us. George, as portrayed by Heffernan, is a character we're not likely to forget anytime soon, not to mention the real-life history surrounding his ordeal, even if it’s framed as a series of misadventures. In film, it's not often we witness the hardships of war by way of the "common" people whose lives were suddenly upended by it, least of all a working mother and her child, but "Blitz" underlines war's enormous scope, and how any one of us can be forced to rely on our most basic instincts to survive and to seek out and protect the ones we love.