Written by: Steve McQueen
Starring: Saoirse Ronan. Elliott Heffernan, Harris Dickinson, Benjamin Clementine
Rating: [3/5]
With so many wars that have transpired in world history, the continued fascination with World War II has created a deluge of films fixated on this era from all perspectives. British and American filmmakers have made their fair share, which makes any addition to this pile needing to stand out, frankly, to capture my attention. A film like Blitz directed by the great Steve McQueen and starring Saoirse Ronan should have locked me in immediately but despite its stunning technical sequences what we got here was a limp story with no juice.
In hopes to keep her son safe as World War II rages on in London, Rita (Saoirse Ronan) makes the difficult decision to send George (Elliot Heffernan) off to a camp outside the city meant to shelter children. With George’s refusal to acquiesce to his mother’s wishes, he jumps off the train and sets to return home to her amidst all of the warfare.
Never did I think I would give a Steve McQueen film such a tepid review as the man knows how to craft powerful films but something felt lacking in Blitz. Not that it failed to touch upon anything meaningful but the best way to describe my feelings around this film would be to call it far too conventional. I would expect a film like this from a journeyman filmmaker but someone of his caliber I found myself seeking more. This feelings does not extend to the technical elements of the film, which I will discuss in more detail later but nothing narratively about this film stands out in a meaningful manner. I’ve never said that about a McQueen film until now.
Beginning together but then separated, this feature has two narratives running through the majority of the runtime where we see George trying to return home while Rita tries to help with the war effort and continue to support her father. The commonalities they share in their struggle center on the general racism at the time in London. George was born of Rita and her lover who was later deported to Grenada. As a mixed-race young lad you do not have to imagine what type of behavior he had to deal with but Rita received plenty of vitriol through passing glances and remarks because she has a mixed-race son. Different struggles because of their identity but both coming from the same source: racism. This element just exists and does not receive much further exploration as the film had more of an interest in depicting the conditions of London during the war with Rita along with the outside as George traversed the land on his way back.
For as much as the narrative elements felt unsatisfactory, the technical aspects of this film definitely stood out. From the use of sound displaying the terrifying reality for these Londoners every night with bombs dropping to the production design of a war-torn nation the film transports us back to this period of time proficiently. One scene where George needs to navigate through a near-collapsing building really shows the film’s best elements in building out something terrifying for our lead character. This area certainly did not fail to measure up to our expectations of a McQueen film.
Centering a film around a child character carries its inherent risks in putting so much weight on someone so young but George Hanway does a very good job here. He helps illustrate the danger all around him, but his general naïveté allows for this to all serve as a learning process for him. It’s what makes the moments he shares with an air raid warden, Ife (Benjamin Clementine) in one of the shelters so powerful. How I wish we could have spent more time with those two as a pairing navigating this whole ordeal but evidently this film did not give me much of what I wanted.
While having some good ingredients at the disposal and various flashes of greatness, Blitz comes together as yet another forgettable World War II tale. Nothing about it necessarily stands out narratively, and it does not leave any sort of lasting impression. However, there are glimmers of quality that McQueen brings to this feature that just barely salvages it for me that truly show the kernels of greatness embedded within the story but just did not get nearly enough of the screen time to truly elevate this project. Squarely at the bottom of McQueen’s filmography but I’m always glad to have another of his films out in the ether.
Films with Josh 
