Steve McQueen's first feature film since Widows in 2018 is a well made, gorgeously shot and nicely cast period piece of Londoners struggling during the Blitz, told from the viewpoints of a mother and a son. It's an interesting but at times unsatisfying watch, an odd hybrid of the old-fashioned and the revisionist that contains sections of lyricism, horror, racism, hope and depravity that never really coalese into a cohesive whole. Saoirse Ronan plays Rita, mother to nine year old son George (Elliott Heffernan). The pair live with Rita's dad (played by the Modfather, no less) in Stepney Green, George's Grenadian father deported after a fight with some white racists before the lad was born. With the bombing getting closer and closer to home, Rita puts the lad on a train to be evacuated to the country. However, an angry George jumps off the train not far out and makes his way back home, encountering a Dickensian cast of characters on the way. As for Rita, she carries on working at the munitions factory, missing her son and then scouring the city when she finds out he's absconded. Will the two be reunited or will one or either become another victim of the war?
At the film's premiere, director McQueen stated his film was a tribute to Londoners, one that in his words "honours the spirit of how Londoners endured during the blitz, but also explores the true representation of people in London." This means both the contribution black people made to the war effort and to the racism they faced. Sometimes this feels a little forced but there are moments of quiet power, George unsure of his heritage, seeing nightmarish representations of Africans in a shopping arcade, for example, and in the brief but touching relationship between the lad and Nigerian air raid warden Ife (Benjamin Clementine), George witnessing the man calm down a racial flashpoint in a shelter with a rousing speech, telling the older man quietly afterwards 'I am black' for the first time. We get examples of vibrant black culture too, from the dance club that Rita is taken to in flashback by her lover and, in a clever and ultimately chilling moment, a thrumming hotspot with a black band and lounge singer, the mostly white guests having a ball, until the music stops, they all look up and then we see the aftermath, the same club in ruins, the corpses laid out among the rubble and dust.
McQueen has an artist's eye and with the help of Yorick Le Saux's ravishing cinematography conjures up some arresting imagery. An out of control firehose in the middle of an inferno, for example, or a couple acting as if their home still has a front, the father sat reading a paper, his wife dusting the bedroom floor straight off the side. There are some ambitious and eye-popping set-pieces as well, especially an underground platform getting flooded, sweeping people off down the tracks. McQueen also offers up a pair of criminals Dickens would have proud off, Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke a pair of wrong 'uns who rob the dead and the devastated landscape. However, though moments are genuinely powerful, the focus on the mother and son relationship often takes a back seat to the director's other concerns meaning the emotional heft is at times lacking. Ronan also has a limited amount to work with, Rita being basically a nice young mother who can sing. There's only so much you can do with that. Heffernan proves himself to be a winning young actor, one I think we'll end up seeing more of. Blitz is a good film, with superb production values and moments of brilliance but it's ultimately less than the sum of its parts.
70s Rating: ***
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