Steve McQueen’s Blitz is an absorbing drama that captures moments of diversity and resilience during the bombings in WWII London.
Director: Steve McQueen
Genre: Drama, Historical, War, Action
Run Time: 120′
BFI London Film Festival Screening: October 9-18, 2024
Theatrical Release Date: November 1 in select US theaters and UK cinemas
Streaming Release Date: November 22 on Apple TV+
The Blitz was a pivotal event in World War II. Nazi Germany’s bombing campaign targeted cities like London and brought the horrors and destruction of the war to Britain. Yet it also led to togetherness and camaraderie from a resolutely strong population. A ‘Blitz Spirit’ that became embedded in the country’s history after the Allies’ victory. And so it falls to Steve McQueen, one of the best British directors of recent years, to capture these moments of resilience during this tumultuous time. His fifth feature narrative film, Blitz, which has opened the 2024 London Film Festival, sees the writer-director bring his singular vision to an absorbing odyssey of a boy seeking to return home.
In September 1940, as the bombs start falling on Stepney Green, Rita (Saoirse Ronan, The Outrun) has to make a tough choice. With the encouragement of her father Gerald (Paul Weller), she decides to send her young son George (newcomer Elliott Heffernan) away from the chaos to the countryside. But George is resentful of being sent away, and the two-part on bitter terms. Then George decides to carry out a daring escape from the train, beginning a perilous journey to reunite with his family. Meanwhile, a worried Rita finds out about her son’s abscondment and searches for him.
There are similarities to Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, which also followed a British boy trying to find his family in a place torn apart by the war. There is even an urgency to the story given the conflicts we see today. However, Blitz is a unique offering from McQueen, who has described the film as “seeing war through a child’s eyes.” George’s ground-level perspective is central throughout, with DP Yorick Le Saux focusing on close-ups of his eyes and expressions.
So are the perspectives of the ordinary people caught in the middle of this bombardment, shown through an ensemble cast depicting a realistic and diverse set of Londoners. Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) is an air raid warden and family friend. Hayley Squires (Beau Is Afraid) and Erin Kellyman (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) are Rita’s friends at the ammunition factory where they contribute to the war effort. Benjamin Clementine (Dune) is a Nigerian-born warden named Ife. Kathy Burke (Nil By Mouth) and Stephen Graham (The Irishman) are a gang of thieves who rob bombed buildings and dead people.
Some of these performances are memorable despite how brief they are. Clementine and Weller‘s turns both possess softly caring qualities (remarkable considering both are primarily musicians, and this is Weller’s acting debut). At the film’s core, though, is the central pair of Heffernan and Ronan. His George carries the film at points, managing to be precocious and determined yet homesick and fearful. She adds grit to Rita, but also the guilt of sending her son away. Both actors are mesmerising.
There is a lived-in quality to the production design by Adam Stockhausen (12 Years A Slave), who provides lavishly detailed places and bombed-out rubble. The sound design is notable too for the way it surrounds us in an amplified cacophony of chaos. Bombs whistle, explosions rattle, machinery chugs and fizzes sparks. Aided by Hans Zimmer’s dramatic and discordant score, the sound of Blitz creates a sense of tension amidst destruction. But there are other points where the film is filled with music, from big band standards to rousing songs sung in a shelter. It enforces the spirit of carrying on, though there are limits. A sequence of two long takes shows off the swinging Café de Paris before and after it is bombed. The reality of this war is never too far away.
George’s and Rita’s encounters with this ensemble of contrasting characters can make the film feel episodic at points, with its destination never really in doubt. As a result, Blitz is one of Steve McQueen’s most conventional films to date – though it is by no means sanitised. There are some terrifying moments, from accidents to masses trying to find shelter. George’s mixed race plays a part in making the film compellingly disconcerting (especially considering its more standard elements), whether he is facing racism from other boys or shop windows depicting slavery and racist caricatures. Signs of the pervasive Empire, signs of hatred and bigotry that are all over this point in history.
Moreover, Ife has to contend with racism in a shelter whilst a pre-war flashback to a jazz club (which brings a vitality akin to McQueen’s incredible Small Axe entry Lovers Rock) sees Rita with George’s Grenadian father Marcus (CJ Beckford), only for the two to be torn apart.
McQueen’s controlled direction over his films is part of the reason they are so masterful, and the filmmaker has a fine grasp of the tension, structure and scale of Blitz. This doesn’t try to encompass London during this time or be decisive about the ‘Blitz Spirit.’ It is a set of stories about the best and worst of us, equal senses of selfishness and selflessness as experienced by two people seeking to reunite. And the emotion attached to that – the thing that makes this film more accessible (and, to some, soppy) – is what makes the film work.
“You’re the shelter that I call home,” sings Rita at one point. Blitz is a lightly affecting, magnificently helmed film about finding shelter and personal unity in the face of troubles.
Blitz opened the BFI London Film Festival on October 9, 2024 and will be screened again on October 10-18. The film will be released in select US theaters and UK cinemas on November 1 and on Apple TV+ on November 22. Read our list of 30 movies to watch at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival!
