Any young person who spent their formative schooling years in Britain would likely agree with me when I say that Steve McQueen’s Blitz (2024) is a combination of a harrowing war retelling and a Sunday afternoon BBC family drama that struggles to blend well.
Set in 1940s Britain during World War II, single mother and factory worker Rita (Saoirse Ronan) and her nine-year-old son George (Elliot Heffernan) live in Stepney Green during the evacuation of children from London. Upon their eventual separation, they each embark on their own journeys living through the Blitz.
The story juggles an overwhelming amount of themes, some of which are compelling. George’s odyssey of self-discovery through the multiculturalism of London during the 40s is an angle of the war often not spoken about. His arc with police officer Ife (Benjamin Clémentine) on what it meant to be a mixed-race child in that era was the heart of this film and an aspect that needed to be explored much more than it was.
What there have been many incarnations of, though, is the perspective of a child during the Blitz. During moments of this film, a correlation can be made to the British classroom classic Goodnight Mister Tom (1998) with the innocent conversations among children. However, the key difference is the unfiltered horrors of death and destruction that George has witnessed firsthand. Evacuation of children was voluntary during this time, so oftentimes some children had to be subjected to atrocities which had yet to be explored in this depth until now.
Ronan’s performance of a heartbroken and determined mother dealing with being apart from her son is, as expected, the standout role. This theme is grasped fiercely yet compassionately through Ronan’s powerful dialogue contrasted with her effortlessly beautiful singing voice (only seen before on the Jimmy Fallon show) in the original song “Winter Coat”. McQueen cleverly utilizes music to propel the well-known protective parental figure trope to further heights.
The exploration of the privileges received by the bourgeoisie as opposed to the proletariats when sheltering during air raids was translated into film strikingly but, once again, is not given enough time to evolve into a fully realized idea.
The importance of the London Underground system as a shelter for the working class was a personal favorite filmization of the Blitz. Watching civilians beg just to be admitted into tube stations as shelters to save their lives compared to the clean, comfortable, and well-stocked shelters reserved for those with status was painful but paramount to observe.
All of the themes introduced in Blitz are incredibly important in understanding what it was like to be these characters; however, this perhaps would have worked better in a limited series format where each episode would concentrate on one of the ideas aforementioned. McQueen is no stranger to the limited series domain, having made Small Axe (2020), making this an even bigger wasted opportunity.
McQueen never fails to propel marginalized voices in any narrative. Blitz is yet another example, and I am sure it will not be the last.
Review Courtesy of Nandita Joshi
Feature Image Credit to Apple TV+ via Variety