Academy Award winning director Steve McQueen who burst onto the scene with 12 Years a Slave and continued to shine with the wonderful “Small Axe” series has returned with a small but engaging film about a boy and his mother that takes place during World War 2 in London. The big star of the film is Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird, Brooklyn) who plays Rita, the mother of a 9-year-old mixed race boy named George played by Elliott Heffernan in his debut performance, but he steals the show. London is in the middle of the Blitz, as in the Nazis are bombing the place to hell, so families decide to send their children to the countryside to be safe. Only George decides he doesn’t want to be separated from his mom, and just outside town, he jumps from the train and begins his odyssey homeward. And the rest of the film is a series of stories as he makes his way closer and closer.
The film cuts back and forth between George’s travels and Rita’s life working in a munitions factory blissfully unaware that her son is not safe and warm in the country. He’s hopping trains. Meeting a series of people, many who help him. Some who exploit him. He’s dealing with racism. He’s in danger. But somehow he is getting closer to home. And then one day, the people who are supposed to have been taking care of him, come to tell Rita that they lost him on the way north and she kicks into “find my lost kid” mode. And that isn’t easy in the middle of a city in the middle of a blitz.
As narratives go, you pretty much know where it is going. But what elevates it is that McQueen gets great performances out of his actors ands incredible cinematography and production design. Also the script deals with the racism of the era in a number of ways throughout the film: the father’s disappearance, George’s and Rita’s frequent taunts, the inclusion of other minor black characters. This is not one of McQueen’s major films, but it is definitely worth a watch and Heffernan proves that he is a young actor with a future.
[Mainstream Chick’s take: I agree that Blitz is an engaging film, thanks to the performances of Ronan and Hefferman and a few supporting characters who come into the picture during the boy’s somewhat Dickensian adventure. Overall, though, the film doesn’t have much to distinguish it from myriad World War Two genre flicks depicting the horrors of war, innocent civilians caught in the crossfire (or in this case, a barrage of bombings), and families torn apart. Blitz could sneak into the award season mix with a few nominations, but is unlikely to have much impact. Still, worth checking out if you have Apple TV+ and two hours to kill. -hb]
It is streaming now on Apple TV+.