Rich cinematography, flawless editing, perfect art direction, and superb acting all make director Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” a film worth watching. So why, with a couple of notable exceptions that I cannot reveal, is it lacking more emotional punch?
Set mostly in London during the relentless German bombing (the Blitzkrieg) of 1940/41, Rita (Saoirse Ronan) must send her only son, 9-year- old George (Elliott Heffernan), away to the countryside for safety’s sake.
But George is a willful boy who only lasts an hour on the outbound train before jumping off and waving a defiant goodbye to the dozens of other children still on board.
And here the film switches back and forth between Rita’s immense sadness and her tedious factory job. And George’s journey toward home.
She’s a single Mom whose father Gerald (Paul Weller) is her only remaining family at home. Meanwhile, George embarks on an Oliver Twist-like set of adventures that put him in peril and introduce him to mostly creepy people. It is the kid’s single-minded determination to get back home to his mother that keeps him going.
McQueen, who also wrote the screenplay, has made George bi-racial- he never knew his father who was black. This brings in a remarkable aspect I hadn’t associated with wartime London: rampant racism. It adds a layer to George’s plight and makes way for a short but memorable appearance by a Nigerian cop whose interaction with him is surely the most moving of the film’s run.
As for Ronan, she is, as you’d expect, very, very good. Sidenote: we see that she, as Rita, is an accomplished singer, too.
See what I mean? There is so much to admire, and McQueen certainly knows how to elicit deep feelings (12 Years a Slave, hello?), yet at the end I found myself full of admiration for the film’s artists, but lacking warmth and completely dry-eyed.
I still recommend seeing it for those who appreciate the technical aspects of filmmaking and a story that’s, at the very least, something you haven’t seen before, in spite of the glut of World War II movies in our history.
Blitz may still be in select theaters and premieres on Apple TV+ on November 22nd
