The Reel Review
A single mother in London sends her young biracial son to the English countryside to take refuge from the Nazi German aerial blitzkrieg attacks of 1940. But when he flees the train taking him to safety, it leads him on an Iliad-type journey home. Saoirse Ronan and Elliot Heffernan star in this historical war drama.
Excellent period visuals aside, the problem with Blitz is the threadbare story from writer/director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, Shame), which seems more focused on throwing strange plot twists at the viewer, than in telling a compelling war drama. There is a wooden, sterile quality to the film, which makes it almost impossible to connect with his characters.
Ronan and Heffernan are both fine but this is one dull war drama that, besides pointing out some of the worst aspects of human nature (racism, classism, distrust), tells us nothing new. Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) is wasted in the role of a firefighter/potential love interest. Other, similar films like Come and See, Run Boy Run and even Lore, (from a German teenager’s point of view) tell the war saga from a child’s perspective way better.
REEL FACTS
• The scene where the London Underground is flooded actually happened when a German bomb on October 14, 1940 ruptured water, gas and sewer lines, causing the Balham tube station to flood, killing 68 of the 600 people seeking shelter there.
• Blitz is Elliot Heffernan’s acting debut.
• Writer/director Steve McQueen won the Best Picture Oscar for 2013’s 12 Years a Slave.
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