Opening the London Film Festival, Blitz is the latest film from director Steve McQueen – and it marks a complete change of tone. Don’t go into this expecting anything similar to Hunger, Shame or 12 Years A Slave. Instead, Blitz has the feel of a cosy Sunday night BBC drama (which, depending on your expectations, may or may not be a good thing).
The film weaves together several wartime storylines, centring itself firmly in the East End in 1940. Rita (Saoirse Ronan) has made the difficult decision to evacuate her young son, George (Elliot Heffernan) from the home they share with her father (Paul Weller) in Stepney Green. But George has no desire to see out the war in the countryside and leaps from a moving train. Desperate to get back home, he encounters both helping hands and unsavoury characters as pockets of London are reduced to rubble.
It has to be said that the production design of Blitz is nothing short of awe-inspiring. The attention to detail that McQueen lovingly pours onto the screen ensures that every scene, every new setting is immediately brought to life. (Seriously, there must be thousands of extras in this film.) From gorgeous tracking shots taking us through the humdrum of life in a munitions factory or the glamour of a nigh out in a jazz club, McQueen wants you to see, hear and smell the UK capital. Overhead shots linger on smoking ruins whilst intense close ups underline the weariness of night after night in the Underground. The searing whistle of bombs falling from the sky is enough to make you flinch. Hans Zimmer’s score oscillates neatly between gentle 40s-inspired incidental music and the operatic bombast of war.
The performances are excellent, too. As you might expect, Saoirse Ronan is utterly credible as Rita. Through flashbacks, we see her relationship with Marcus (CJ Beckford), which draws racist ire from the locals. Their son, George, is also a target for racist remarks throughout the film, as McQueen attempts to shine a light on Black British experience during ‘the Blitz’. Elliot Heffernan manages this role with remarkable maturity and intensity. His delivery is spot on; both vulnerable and obstinate.
The film definitely shies away from a rose-tinted approach to war. Yes, there are sing songs around the piano and everyone chipping in to make a “lovely cup of tea” in the bomb shelters, but there are also opportunists and jobs worths. George, in particular, encounters both types of people.
The problem with Blitz is that it all feels a bit safe. The writing is prone to spontaneous speechifying, meaning that we are often told instead of shown. There’s a fantastic scene where George recoils at the spoils of the Empire in a shopping arcade – it’s dramatic and shocking – but this is soon undercut by a rather shoe-horned in lesson about Hitler wanting us to hate different races and how the bombs don’t care what colour you are. If McQueen had pushed further in his exploration of identity – specifically through the eyes of young George – this could have been a much more interesting narrative.
There’s also an issue with unresolved plot points or characters appearing only to serve no purpose. We never hear again from the young boys George absconds with – despite a massive tragedy befalling them all. Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke show up as Fagin-esque gang 
leaders who try to exploit George but that, too, doesn’t go anywhere and seems like a waste of good talent. Harris Dickinson is also part of the ensemble but he, too, is criminally underused. The costuming also seems out of place. Whilst the styles and patterns are authentic to the era, everything feels too new; too pristine. There’s not a vest with a hole in it or a sock needing darned in sight. Despite all the dust and dirt of the bombings, everyone remains remarkably well turned out. The only allusion to rationing is Rita and her factory colleagues drawing on their stockings.
Blitz does offer plenty to marvel at – at times, it really does feel like a proper spectacle, one that can only truly be appreciated on the big screen. But it just doesn’t deliver on the hard hitting issues that it flirts with. It feels like there is a great story in there – and certainly, there are the performances to back this up – but it doesn’t ever find its way to the surface. It’s an enjoyable watch but not perhaps as striking as you might expect from Steve McQueen.
Blitz is screening at the London Film Festival and is set to hit UK cinemas on November 1.
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