Blitz (2024)- BFI London Film Festival 2024

Review

120min

Genre:       Drama, Thriller, War

Director:     Steve McQueen

Cast:         Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan, Paul Weller…and more

Writers:     Steve McQueen

-Synopsis-

In the midst of the Nazi bombings of the British capital, a young East End mother struggles to track down the son she sent to the country for safety, but who decided to return alone and traverse a dangerous and scarred city back to his home in this striking period portrait of wartime London and its people from the director ‘Hunger’ and ’12 Years a Slave’.

After transitioning from acclaimed visual artist to Oscar-winning filmmaker, forging an eclectic career focusing his bold and illuminating lens on everything from challenging portraits of pain and resistance in Northern Ireland and the 19th century American South, to tense contemporary US stories of sex addiction and crime widowers, daring and visionary London writer/director/producer Steve McQueen returns home to pay tribute to the harrowing personal stories and resilient spirit of 1940s Britain, while revealing some uncomfortable cultural truths and drawing parallels with our world today . . . dazzling the audience and breaking our collective hearts along the way.

Elliott Heffernan stars a nine-year-old East Ender ‘George’, a spirited youngster growing up in Stepney Green with his young factory worker mum ‘Rita’ (Saoirse Ronan) and grandpa ‘Gerald’ (Paul Weller) during the “Blitz” German bombing campaign in late 1940 London, only for his life to be turned upside down when things become too dangerous and he’s sent to safety in the countryside.  But his rural escape is cut short when determined George breaks free and makes his way back to the capital, embarking on a risky and eye-opening odyssey home as he meets a host of characters, from the helpful like firefighter ‘Ife’ (Benjamin Clémentine) to the exploitative like scallywag ‘Albert’ (Stephen Graham), whilst his mum struggles to help the local community only to be plunged into the stress of reuniting with her lost son when she learns of his predicament—helped by local firefighter ‘Jack’ (Harris Dickinson)—before the devastating fate of their city can catch up with them all.

At first glance ‘Blitz’ may look like a rather traditional British period tale and World War II survival drama, and for the most part it is indeed, beautifully crafted by an accomplished cinematic craftsman and his team who masterfully re-create besieged 1940 London with stellar production and costume designs, while French cinematographer and regular Olivier Assayas collaborator Yorick Le Saux (Carlos the Jackal, Clouds of Sils Maria) vividly captures it all and helps to paint a cinematic portrait of the capital as we’ve rarely seen it on the big screen.

The film’s spectacle and style credentials are further underlined by the strategically placed and increasingly tense action sequences and survival struggles borne out of the city’s destruction, particularly involving young George and his perilous journey home, bolstered by powerful and jolting sound design which helps ratchet up the tension, never more so than with the unmistakable and terrifying scream of the British air raid siren, all helping to plunge the audience into the chaos alongside the young lad. The soundscape is completed and the mood set by another memorable offering from maestro Hans Zimmer, often providing a jarring and dissonant string-led score to dial up the unease, but breaking it up with more melodic interludes, all combined with in-film performances of classic standards, big band jazz, and British folk songs to give ‘Blitz’ an unexpectedly musical backbone.

Yet if you were expecting some added social layers and stylistic choices from a Steve McQueen take on a period wartime drama set in his beleaguered and historic hometown, the Londoner obliges from the start by immediately plunging the audience into the terror and destruction of the German Blitzkrieg campaign over London. But what really separates ‘Blitz’ from the films which likely inspired it—which include everything from ‘The Railway Children’ and ‘Empire of the Sun’ to ‘Come and See’ and ‘The Pianist’—is the rare cultural filter through which the writer/director threads his epic civilian survivor war story.

By telling the tale in large part through the young eyes of George—the son of a white British mother and a black Afro-Caribbean father—McQueen crafts a British World War II drama and impressive period piece through the seldom seen perspective of a person of colour, which opens up the confronting and relatively rare dimension of race in a film of this kind. As such ‘Blitz’ also serves as an intense and visceral wartime meditation on the open racial prejudice of the time, and on Britain’s colonial legacy, whilst leaving a hopeful if slightly fanciful note on immigration and the ideals of a multicultural UK, and whether intentionally or not also projecting echoes of today’s devastating conflicts around the globe.

Despite the major scale and spectacle of the film, its fortunes will ultimately rise or fall on the strength of the performances in what is as much a character drama, and thankfully McQueen can count on astute casting to help forge a real connection between the audience and his protagonists, effectively tugging at our heartstrings as he puts them through the ringer. As the heart and youngest star of the piece Elliott Heffernan is a revelation in his auspicious screen debut, shining as a youngster plunged into a traumatising struggle for survival and reunification, forced to experience both the best and worst of humanity whilst trying to find belonging and reunite with his family, and doing it all with bags of moxie, heart . . . and more than a bit of pathos.

The biggest star of the piece Saoirse Ronan meanwhile completes this stirring mother-son story by mastering yet another accent, an accomplished cockney lilt this time, plus some unexpected singing to deliver the latest performance which underlines her credentials as one of the finest actors of her generation. They’re of course backed by solid supporting turns from the likes of Benjamin Clémentine, Harris Dickinson and Stephen Graham as the various faces and facets of 1940 London, plus of course the great Paul Weller as the stoic grandpa, who helps cement the unexpected musicality in the soul of the film.

Ultimately though ‘Blitz’ has one goal at its heart, to be a tribute to the men, children and women, particularly the mothers of wartime Britain, in a constant state of worry and grief over their men sent to fight abroad and their babies in danger at home, whilst having to stay strong keeping the home fires burning, holding the country together, and contributing significantly to the war effort. It’s safe to say then that McQueen achieves his goal in style, delivering an epic and memorable ode to the British stiff upper lip fighting spirit and dogged resilience with this modern classic “keep calm and carry on” origin story.

The Bottom Line…

A striking, culturally contemplative tribute to the mothers of wartime Britain and “keep calm and carry on” ode to British spirit and fortitude, ‘Blitz’ marks another cinematic triumph for Steve McQueen and delivers a visceral and moving World War II civilian survivor epic from a fresh perspective, underlining his already established reputation as a bold and visionary filmmaker with a discerning eye for the past and the present.

‘Blitz’ is out in UK and US cinemas on the 1st of November, and streams from the 22nd of November on Apple TV+.

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Dunkirk (2017)

In the summer of 1940 and with Britain on the brink of military catastrophe, nearly 400,000 British and allied soldiers stand cut-off and surrounded by the German army on the northern French coast, only for the people of Britain to risk everything and race across the channel to bring their boys back home—as director Christopher Nolan stamps a pivotal point of the second world war onto the big screen . . . and in nerve-shredding style.

Directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Fionn Whitehead, Tom Hardy and Mark Rylance among others.

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