Blitz

During the blitz, Rita (Saoirse Ronan) has been reluctantly persuaded to let her young son George (Elliott Heffernan) evacuate to the country. He is not keen and jumps from the train and starts making his way back to his mum, encountering various characters, some kind, some not, but he is always in danger of harm and / or being sent back to the country. Rita, distraught at losing him, finds out what happened and starts looking for him.

Certainly this is a sweeping and spectacular visualisation of what happened to London during the blitz and how it affected the population. In fact the broader picture of how ordinary people were affected on a day to day basis, how it changes their lives and what they had to do is the principal achievement here. Less so, despite fine performances from Ronan and newcomer Hefferman is the 'adventure' the young George goes through which comes across as a not always convincing sub Dickens story, with looters Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke straight out of Oliver Twist. McQueen is a skilled filmmaker, but this time lays particular elements on with a trowel, including the inevitable racism, which he works on too much at the expense of the story. The overall result here is a spectacular, often stunning epic which left me rather cold. Disappointing.

The Blitz and its societal impact absolutely warrant a high budget film. And at times this film delivers. There are great action shots of night raids and bombings. Some scenes get across the tension and fear of the time really well and one tragedy (based on true events) is done extremely well.

The problem is only half the film is actually about the Blitz. The other half of the time is spent blatantly and unnaturally shoehorning issues of race and racism. It actually gets so ridiculous that it completely destroys any immersion.

If your only exposure to the Blitz was this film you would go away thinking that ethnic tensions were just as significant an issue in London in 1940 as the bombs raining down from the sky.

The director clearly wanted to make a film about racism which is absolutely fine and he has already done so expertly in the amazing 12 Years A Slave. But he should not have commandeered the Blitz as a subject for this purpose. It is silly at best and disrespectful at worst and makes for a thoroughly confused and directionless film.

On top of that the storyline itself is pretty repetitive with many aspects and characters not fully fleshed out. There is basically zero character growth which would be fine if the main purpose of the film was showcasing a snapshot of Blitz London, but as I've said it doesn't even do that justice.

I hope this film existing doesn't dissuade someone else for giving a Blitz film a go - WW2 is highly covered in media but this film does little more to shine a light on the as yet underserved topic of the Blitz.

Having enjoyed many of his works, McQueen continues to demonstrate his directing and talents as his approach with this WWII drama offers some interesting atmospheres and beautiful presented atmospheres. Many of the costumes, sound designs, dialogue and soundtrack is very good and fits the era of its setting. Regarding the performances, all of the performances are really good, particularly Elliott Heffernan and Saoirse Ronan as Heffernan and Ronan gave a fantastic performance.

Narratives about WWII have been overdone in the past and while McQueen provides a new approach and observation of the time period, I found myself feeling a bit underwhelmed with the story as unlike McQueen's usual style and approach, it felt more tamed and really predictable that ends up being a bit of a bore at times. Because of this, it caused the character engagement to feel lacking nor fully engaging to connect with. It almost doesn't feel like a Steve McQueen movie at times.

While some pacing moments could improve as well, as a whole, it's still interesting at times and I always look forward to seeing what McQueen could bring to the table.

Apple really wants to give money to Oscar winning directors to bolster its own credentials. The problem is that Steve McQueen isn't nearly as good as everyone insists he is. His output is wildly inconsistent. This one falls somewhere in the middle.

It looks pretty decent - of course most shots are very tight to disguise the difficulty of dressing the city to look old without millions of pounds. The CG is fairly good when they do go wider.

The story is paper thin and at two hours it really drags in the middle, you could cut 20 minutes and it would be a lot better. Of course he shoehorns in a lot of stuff about racism as he tends to, like Spike Lee he can't leave it alone even when it's not really the point of the story. It doesn't detract from the film but it doesn't add much either.

Ultimately though it feels like this is a film he made because Apple wanted to give him the money, it doesn't really have anything to say and certainly nothing new.

This movie is an excellent example of what you get when you have a checklist of things you want to force into a movie, the story doesn't add up. The director used most of the movie time not to build characters or a story no but just to fill his checklist. The movie should be British but why is it American? Actors did the most they can do honestly with an amazing performance. Please all directors writers out there don't make your story based on any checklist.

Without spoilers, people show on the movie and leave without even getting introduced and without even a reason there was many characters who deserved more time and more build up but naaaa director use character just to mention something ( racism, Nazis, segregation, ...)