Drearily Conventional Yet Often Charming, Blitz Chronicles the Early Days of British Civilian Turmoil During WWII

A few months before his adaptation of 12 Years a Slave would win multiple Oscars, British filmmaker Steve McQueen made a scathing condemnation concerning historical dramas in the press. “The second world war lasted five years and there are hundreds and hundreds of films about [it],” he told Sky News in January of 2014. “Slavery lasted 400 years and there are less than 20 [films]. We have to redress that balance and look at that time in history.”

10 years later, McQueen presents Blitz, his own take on this notorious period of British strife and terror. Although the writer-director platforms issues of race, identity and labor in his recount of the early days of German blitzkrieg bombings of residential London neighborhoods, McQueen unfortunately falls into many of the same conventional pitfalls that have plagued the “hundreds and hundreds” of WWII-era films that have preceded his own.

The story centers on 9-year-old George (wonderful newcomer Elliott Heffernan), whose mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) has made the difficult decision to evacuate the child from their cozy home in Stepney Green. Uttering solemn goodbyes to grandad Gerald (Paul Weller) and rotund pet tabby cat Ollie (adorably captured by feline duo Zinger and Tinkerbell), George is escorted to the train station by his mother, who falls to pieces when her child spews a hurtful remark before boarding. Immediately feeling remorse for his insolence, George decides to jump overboard only an hour into his journey, rolling down a grassy hill with his suitcase before dusting himself off and embarking in the general direction of home. Luckily, his mother gifted him a Saint Christopher medallion right before he left, a cliched memento that will certainly “protect” the child as he faces increasingly treacherous obstacles.

The young boy’s odyssey is rife with connections, which weave a tapestry of the varied responses residents had to conflict reaching their soil. First, he encounters three young brothers who, like him, hopped aboard a moving London-bound freight train in order to dodge evacuating to the countryside. George then bonds with Ife (Benjamin Clementine), a Nigerian-born British soldier who provides a vital Black perspective to the mixed-race child, whose father was deported back to Grenada before he was born. Unfortunately, he also gets caught up in a tribe of opportunistic Cockney bandits who sift through rubble—and desecrate dead bodies—in order to acquire abandoned worldly spoils. Yet none of these interactions prove lasting for George; indeed, anyone who crosses his path winds up dead, mangled or helplessly adrift. Blitz might be a story of a war-torn metropolis and its inhabitants, but even so it feels bogged down by its ever-mounting tragedies.

Rita, who is completely unaware of her son’s state, embodies a working-class, cautiously feminist outlook in her day-to-day life. Employed at a munitions factory (where the uniform emulates Rosie the Riveter’s iconic workwear) and volunteering at an underground shelter for the impoverished and downtrodden (with a stark socialist slant), her prime objective is to give back to the community that will inevitably crumble under bombshells. The character also possesses a resounding singing voice, which Ronan flexes with equal aplomb in front of the family piano as with BBC talent scouts. Aside from belting the odd tune, however, Ronan isn’t given much to do here. The occasional, borderline-flirty interaction with neighbor Jack (Harris Dickinson, totally underutilized) hints at perhaps another plotline for Rita that ended up on the cutting room floor.

Thankfully, several scenes involving live music managed to make the final cut. Those who’ve indulged in McQueen’s excellent Small Axe installment Lover’s Rock will be happy to see that the filmmaker’s aptitude for shooting bodies in movement is on prominent display in Blitz. A winning glance inside the iconic Café de Paris spotlights Black talent who perform for an overwhelmingly white, wealthy crowd, but status alone cannot cushion the blow from falling bombs. Another kinetic scene, involving a flashback to the Black dance club that Rita and George’s father used to frequent, implements even more intense choreography. In a film stuffed to the brim with constant melodramatic setbacks, these moments offer some much-needed respite.

Following last year’s documentary Occupied City, which chronicled the Nazi invasion of Amsterdam and its toll on citizens and infrastructure, Blitz certainly feels like a complementary film that turns its gaze on McQueen’s hometown (notably, the filmmaker has homes in both cities; his wife, Bianca Stigter, is Dutch). Although this time and place in British history is remarkably recreated by production designer Adam Stockhausen (whose collaboration with Wes Anderson won him an Oscar for The Grand Budapest Hotel), the film suffers from the same criticism that McQueen levied over a decade ago: We’ve heard this story a thousand times, and there just isn’t much more to hash out this time around. Despite some flourishes that feel tethered to an artistic thoughtfulness on McQueen’s part—from grainy, black and white shots of daisies to shadows of bomber jets cast upon rippling waters—the conventional tone of Blitz obscures any inkling of genuine originality.

Director: Steve McQueen
Writers: Steve McQueen
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Harris Dickinson, Elliott Heffernan
Release Date: Oct. 10, 2024 (New York Film Festival)

Natalia Keogan is a freelance writer and editor with a concerted focus on independent film. Her interviews and criticism have appeared in Filmmaker Magazine, Reverse Shot, Backstage Magazine, SlashFilm, Blood Knife and Daily Grindhouse, among others. She lives in Queens, New York with her large orange cat. Find her on Twitter @nataliakeogan