REVIEW: Blitz [2024]

Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 121 minutes
Release Date: November 1st, 2024 (UK/USA)
Studio: Apple Studios
Director(s): Steve McQueen
Writer(s): Steve McQueen

All mouth and no trousers.

London, World War II. Nightly bombings have begun and citizens have been forced to evacuate their children regardless of their ability to accompany them. Men are fighting, women are working the factories, and they’re all struggling to find shelter the moment the sirens go off. Rita (Saoirse Ronan) doesn’t want to send George (Elliott Heffernan) away, but she doesn’t really have a choice now. It’s for his protection and her peace of mind, but he doesn’t want to go. Doesn’t want to leave her. And why would he? His father was already forced to leave by their racist government. Now he’s being forced out too?

You know that’s what’s going through this boy’s mind. Because he’s dealing with more than just surviving the Nazis. George is still trying to survive the British too. Ridiculed and abused for the color of his skin, he’s never had it easy. The only safe haven he’s ever known is home with Mom and Grandad (Paul Weller). So, leaving isn’t a means for calm. One could say it will be even worse because there won’t be anyone to protect him. It’s why he’s angry when Rita puts him on that train and why he’s determined to get off it as soon as possible. Is jumping the tracks and running home through a war zone recommended? No. But in his mind, he has no other choice.

Written and directed by Steve McQueen, Blitz runs on two parallel journeys. The first is a survival/disaster film starring George as he deals with coppers threatening to put him on another train, bombs falling from the sky, racists wishing he’d get hit by one, and criminals (led by Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke) looking to exploit his diminutive size for their thieving. The second is a melodrama starring Rita as she tries to grieve her boy’s absence, reckon with the past injustice that took his father away from her, and ensure her son makes it back home after discovering what’s happened. We move back and forth to follow their paths while experiencing the tragic, historical circumstances surrounding them.

As such, I couldn’t help thinking about 1917 throughout. George’s trajectory is very similar to that of Lance Corporal Schofield insofar as having a singular mission that takes them into Hell. Whereas I found myself numb to the stakes in Sam Mendes’ film, however, I did feel them this time around. Partly because a child witnessing these atrocities hits harder than a soldier (no matter how young), but mostly because we get to leave him and return to Rita. You don’t see the tracks as clearly when you’re given a reprieve every once in a while. Sure, you can still assume no critical harm will befall George, but the addition of a foil allows for an emotional investment to go along with the physical one. Their longing adds a lot.

So too do the set pieces McQueen has constructed. Each “chapter” brings with it a new environment for play and danger. A train car with new friends. A bomb shelter beside a Black man with the dignity and courage to stand-up for his humanity against those lashing out in fear (Benjamin Clémentine’s Ife steals the show). A nightclub’s raucous before and devastating after. A flooded subway tunnel with shades of Titanic panic. We go into each with the uncertainty of what might happen and leave with a mix of relief and horror since George’s well-being isn’t without the cost of others’ lives. And we can catch our breath by revisiting Rita in-between. Her singing, charity, and love.

It’s a simple film in many regards, but also a dense one in its levels of hardships spanning the general (Nazi bombs) and specific (race). Yes, there’s the hope for George and Rita’s reunion, but also the formation of an identity by a boy forced to confront this world’s many evils all at once in a truncated period of time. That’s where it excels and Heffernan delivers a fantastic debut to ensure it. Ronan and the supporting cast (including Harris Dickinson, Erin Kellyman, and Hayley Squires) are wonderful too, but Blitz lives or dies by our desire to see George succeed. Not just in his search for home, but also his quest for self-actualization. That alone makes it a solid feather on McQueen’s cap.