Blitz

With the Nazi bombs raining down around them, single mum "Rita" (Saoirse Ronan) has to take the difficult decision to evacuate her son "George" (Elliott Heffernan) from the London home they share with her father (Paul Weller). He isn't keen and so jumps from the moving train and tries to make it back home through a city populated by some kindly people and some Dickensian-style villains - and he encounters them both. Meantime, his mum is told of his absconding and as she tries to hold down he job in a munitions factory she must try to track him down. I thought Heffernan delivered really quite engagingly here, as did the rather menacing Kathy Burke with her brief appearances, but the film has a curious sterility to it. We know it's set amidst the random brutality of war, and the narration points out to us that that didn't all come from the skies above with racial prejudice never far from the surface, but it never looks or feels real. Clearly, Apple threw some money at it but the characters are all just too undercooked and there's an inevitability to the story that seems more about convenience than authenticity as it neuters the visceral humanity of the story. That last element isn't helped by a Ronan who seems very much to be going through the motions turning in an adequate enough performance but not one that wasn't being turned in on studio-based television dramas thirty years ago. Dickinson barely features and though it's all perfectly watchable, it's not really very memorable save for a young actor who gives us a knee-high view of man's venality and inhumanity.

FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://talkingfilms.net/blitz-review-beautifully-crafted-emotionally-hollow/ "Blitz is technically competent and offers isolated moments of genuine emotion, but it falls short in character development and thematic exploration. Steve McQueen delivers a visually engaging film with a promising central performance by Elliott Heffernan but struggles to escape the cliches of WWII survival narratives. While it doesn't entirely disappoint, it lacks the emotional depth and originality needed to stand out in an already saturated genre." Rating: C+

Major historic events often provide solid foundations for epic cinematic storytelling, although the success achieved at this depends greatly on the expertise of the writers and directors who execute these projects. One might readily expect such an outcome from a production chronicling the events surrounding the London Blitz, the German air assault that devastated the city in a series of relentless bombing strikes during World War II. However, when it comes to writer-director Steve McQueen’s take on this event, things come up short on multiple fronts. The film follows the saga of nine-year-old George (Elliott Heffernan), a sensitive but remarkably tough and resilient biracial lad who’s reluctantly evacuated from London to stay with a rural foster family, one of countless children included in a well-organized plan to keep youngsters safe from the impact of the attacks. He’s sent by his single mother, Rita (Saoirse Ronan), a loving munitions factory worker desperate to protect her son. But George is hesitant to leave London without her, and so, while on a train taking him to the English countryside, he leaps from the moving passenger car in an effort to make his way back home. The narrative thus follows his journey to reunite with his mum, who desperately begins searching for him amidst the carnage being wrought from above when she learns of his disappearance. Seemingly, this story should make for a compelling picture, but that’s only true part of the time. This overlong, episodic offering strains to keep viewer interest by inserting the protagonists into repeated perilous situations whose primary aim is simply to keep the story moving forward without much in the way of engendering genuine emotional engagement. While this release ambitiously incorporates stories from the Blitz that may not have received much attention previously, as well as poignant incidents related to race relations in the UK at that time (definite feathers in the film’s cap), these segments nevertheless detract somewhat from the main larger story going on around them, affecting the picture’s overall focus. What’s more, this project is further hampered by issues that frequently bog down this filmmaker’s work, such as the inclusion of extraneous material (resulting in needless padding), segments whose relevance isn’t always readily apparent (especially in transition sequences), a need for judicious film editing and occasionally awkward (and inexplicable) experiments in cinematography. To its credit, “Blitz” is stylistically well made, thanks to its fine period piece production design and impressive special effects, in addition to the capable performances of its ensemble (especially Critics Choice Award nominee Heffernan). But are these assets enough? Not for my taste. Movie fans interested in seeing a better film about the Blitz would be well served by watching director John Boorman’s “Hope and Glory” (1987), a more polished effort that earned five Oscar nominations, including best picture. This is not to suggest this release is an awful effort, but it’s one that, given its subject matter, definitely could have stood to be much better.