DUBAI: “Blitz” is a throwback in more ways than one. Acclaimed British director Steve McQueen’s latest movie, now streaming on Apple TV+ after a short cinema run, is a period piece anyway, set in London in World War II during the titular German saturation-bombing campaign, but the film itself — the narrative and pacing particularly — also seem to be from the past; a straightforward rip-roaring Boys’ Own adventure anchored by two excellent performances from newcomer Elliott Heffernan as nine-year-old mixed-race George and Saoirse Ronan as his single mother, Rita.
The chemistry between the two is utterly convincing, and crucial to the main storyline: George’s attempt to return home having joined the hundreds of thousands of children being evacuated — often without their parents — from the UK’s urban centers to the countryside to escape the Blitz.
On the morning of his evacuation, he pleads with Rita not to make him leave. And when she takes him to the train station, he tells her he hates her, then refuses to speak to her as she stands outside his carriage. Within a couple of hours, of course, he’s full of remorse and decides to jump off the train and head back home. So begins a journey fraught with danger, during which George meets a number of disparate characters who teach him about both the kindness of strangers and the danger of relying on that kindness as a given, and in which his courage and resourcefulness are tested to their limits.
Heffernan makes for a compelling central character — conveying George’s emotional confusion and stoic resolution well. Ronan, as usual, is pitch perfect (including vocally — Rita is a gifted singer, and a love for music is a constant thread throughout the film). McQueen tackles the movie’s darker themes (and some are very dark) with a light touch, not dwelling on them — a choice that also matches the retro, family-friendly feel — but not shrinking from them either. And visually “Blitz” is magnificent; some of the aerials shots of a bombed-out London are breathtaking.
“Blitz” doesn’t break any new ground, and feels like something of an outlier in McQueen’s catalogue in its lack of nuance. It is, though, gripping, moving and entertaining.
