“Blitz” (2024) is Caribbean British filmmaker Steve McQueen’s latest film that follows a British mother and son during World War II trying to survive the Nazis bombing campaign. George (Elliott Heffernan) lives with his mother, Rita (Saoirse Ronan), granddad, Gerald (Paul Weller), and cat, Ollie (Zinger and Tinkerbell), but as every night is filled with terror, Rita relents and sends George to the countryside with countless other children, but George decides to return home. Will they ever be reunited?
“Blitz” is simultaneously old-fashioned and fresh, conventional and abstract, and frustrating and relatable. It is an uneven movie that ultimately works despite swinging big and often missing. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m Black/biracial with ties to the United Kingdom and a Caribbean parent so I don’t have an impartial distance when assessing this movie. I generally try to avoid films with boy protagonists because they annoy me when they inevitably do stupid, immature things, which may be age appropriate, but because girls are expected to be more mature and sensible, I receive it as a lack of common sense. George was no different, but Heffernan, in his onscreen debut, did nothing wrong. I have a Black Caribbean mom and the difference in discipline is realistic. If Rita was Black, and his dad was White, he would have either stayed on that train, and there would be no movie, or his mom would have kept her with him knowing that she could not trust others to keep her little boy alive. I would happily go to a predominantly Black theater to hear audience reactions to George’s harrowing return trip.
While “Blitz” is primarily a testament to the courage of British people living through a horror movie and gives the “1917” (2019) treatment to Londoners, which feels overdue and well deserved, it is also about George’s journey home. While George has always experienced racism, his travels appear to be his first experience encountering stereotypical images of Black people and engaging with them in real life. At the Empire Arcade, he sees illustrations of slavery or at least servitude until he meets Ife (Benjamin Clementine), a Nigerian British air raid warden who takes him under his wing for the night. Ife is written like a character that Sidney Poitier would play and monologues inspirational speeches to people underground urging his fellow Brits to not act like Nazis and accept each other regardless of race. Even though it is a heavy-handed, moralizing clunker that has never met subtlety, somehow it works because in war movies about World War II, race is not addressed. For me, it felt like my critique of “Dunkirk” (2017) projected on screen. Sadly the message may have been more idealistic than reality because Asian immigrants, especially Southern Asian Brits, may have suffered more discrimination than other groups.
Perhaps it is a more post-modern concept for parents to realize that their children need to be exposed to all parts of their culture, but the idea that Rita never remained a part of the Black community was a bit shocking even if understandable considering what happens. It feels like an unintended narrative flaw because Rita is otherwise perfect. Ronan as Rita is Rosie the Riveter at work, but otherwise stands out with her nicer clothes, blonde hair and voice. To soothe herself from missing her son, she decides to volunteer at night in an underground shelter that Mickey (Leigh Gill, who was one of the few textured performances in “Joker: Folie a Deux”) runs instead of gallivanting with her friends/co-workers, which includes Erin Kellyman playing Doris. If Kellyman looks familiar, she played a revolutionary leader in “Solo: A Star Wars Story” (2018), but here, she plays one of the few factory workers who chooses job security over protest then briefly lords it over others in a casual aside. The only other (partially) Black woman is Jess (Mica Ricketts), who remains sympathetic because of her trauma and has a redemption arc but is a bit of a villain in “Blitz.” Seems like a trend.
Alas Ife is just one stop on George’s journey, which becomes positively Dickensian as he dodges government officials, bombs and criminals. There is one sequence, which initially feels random, as the elite dance to a Black big band until they hear the air raid sirens, look up and as if the revelers could see through the ceiling, the next shot shows German bombers flying in the nighttime sky. The subsequent scene feels like an updated reprisal of “Les Miserables” as the criminals root through the ruins. It is a dystopian, callous, unflinching scene almost as nightmarish as the Nazis relentless bombardments. McQueen is at his best during the war time scenes or offering a sudden death to jolt George back into reality. In a scene that did have nuance, he watches a puppet show, but he cannot let his child imagination take over. He sees the feet and just walks away.
McQueen engages in a lot of filmmaking techniques during this film that I have never liked. The dance sequence is not shot in the Fred Astaire style, so the entire body is not framed. He understandably elects to prioritize chaos cinema, but because it is not restricted to the siege scenes, it feels inapplicable and excessive. Variety is needed to set the tone, and there is not enough of it. While the abstract, POV shots from the Nazi pilots’ view from their planes flying over the water worked, the black and white shots of dandelions did not. Maybe I’m slipping and need it explained to me, but considering George never went to the countryside, where is this image coming from?
“Blitz” did have one unexpected effect. It made me realize what “A Quiet Place: Day One” (2024) was going for, but did not quite achieve it even down to the cat—Ollie survives, but the human beings are not so lucky. You need nine lives to survive this time. McQueen recreates a flooding of an underground train station, which did happen during the Blitz though is not as commonly known across the pond. After “Titanic” (1997), it will fuel watery nightmares as if being underground was not claustrophobic enough. McQueen succeeds at conveying to moviegoers how chaotic it would be to not be able to go then stay home and sleep in your bed after work. The Brits had to deal with sleeplessness, loud noises and mortality then go to work and function. It is such a potentially demoralizing situation, yet the relative calmness and good cheer was a defiant outcome.
While “Blitz” is often inconsistent and not all of McQueen’s creative choices land, it ultimately works and offers much needed perspective, especially for Americans who will be enduring another term of Presidon’t. Fear not. While we may have to confront fascism again, stories like this about ordinary people surviving under worse conditions against a familiar enemy should hearten the most inconsolable, frightened moviegoer.
