Blitz is the new film by Steve McQueen, the director of Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave, and Small Axe, with a new film set during World War II in the UK. Finding out about this film, I was kind of tired of films set during this setting as it feels like we’ve seen every possible take on it in film and TV. Yet it’s time to eat crow because, low and behold, McQueen was basically like, hold up, here’s this new lens into that story. Blitz is about a family living in London during the Blitzkrieg in 1940. A young mother named Rita (Saoirse Ronan) lives with her son George (Elliott Heffernan) and her father Gerald (Paul Weller). After a recent bombing barrage, Rita decides to put George on an evacuation train for children to the countryside until it is safe. George rejects this and is adamant about not leaving; once on the train, he jumps off and begins a long journey back to his mother. It unfolds like a Charles Dickens-style story that focuses on Black life in London and the UK at this time. George is a mixed child; his father is from the Caribbean, and you learn very quickly why he wants and needs to be with his family versus a place full of white kids that could be harassing him or, even worse, in the children’s place in the countryside.
George’s perspective is portrayed in such a fantastic fashion by the young Heffernan as he struggles with his identity, his issues of not having his father, and his guilt for how he talked to his mother when they separated, which drives this character in every dangerous stop. This young actor carries this film, and you worry about him every single second of the film. The film feels like it’s also in conversation with his series Small Axe, which was about Black immigrants during the 60s through the 80s; this focusing on 1940 and the other Black people from the commonwealth he meets, shows a part of life there that as a Black person in the US, we never really think about or know anything about. I don’t want to leave out just how good Ronan is in this as Rita; while I haven’t seen her other film this year, The Outrun, I can say she definitely should be in the running for an Academy Award this year. Rita is a simple character on the surface, a mother worrying for her child, but then the layers start being peeled as they split and they go on different journeys. Rita’s arc deals with women working as the men are off to fight, and the public wants the government to use the London subway tunnels as bomb shelters. That alone could be its own film. Rita has an interiority that helps her feel three-dimensional, as you see this woman dealing with her son being away and grieving the relationship she lost with George’s father.
The filmmaking is utterly stunning, with strong shot compositions and great lighting. The editing and movement of the camera in action scenes are very well done, as it’s never confusing, and you can always follow the action on screen. McQueen shows his command by showing how the tension ramps up as the use of the bombs pushes the story’s pace. There is some great use of color in the frame in night scenes that pop in stark use of lighting as well. Blitz is a surprise excellence in cinema for the year and from Apple. If you can, go see it in the theater. It’s a film that can juggle multiple strong themes simultaneously, and this is a very blatant Black film from an unexpected subject matter.
Score: A
