Bath Voice News Film Review: Steve McQueen’s Blitz is a very 21st century take on the home front in a story of a lost boy searching for his mother

November 15, 2024

Blitz 2024. Review. Little Theatre Bath.

Bombed, chased, drowned and beaten. Little George (Elliott Heffernan) has a tough almost Dickensian life in war torn London as he runs from one horror to another. All around the city seems to be tumbling down in hues of blue-grey, black and dirty brown.

World War 2 ended nearly 80 years ago and yet its shadow continues to fall across the UK and much of Europe. Poland is rearming to cast off the stigma of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Germany is facing an existential crisis and Britain’s ill-thought-out Brexit had echoes of pulling up the 1940 drawbridge on the French and the Germans. And as for Russia, well the thirst for conquest is alive today as it was in 1939 when Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Latvia were swallowed up.

The conflict that engulfed so much of the world continues to fascinate film-makers and writers with Steve McQueen’s Blitz (2024) the latest take – this time on wartime London and a story of a lost boy in search of his mum. Young George (Elliott Heffernan) has been despatched by rail to the countryside to escape the bombing by his mother Rita (Saoirse Ronaan) but he’s an unwilling evacuee. At the first chance he doubles back and sets out to find her with many an adventure on the way.

There are echoes of John Boorman’s Hope and Glory (1987) with children playing in the bombed out houses and of Bill Sykes and Fagan in Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist as George is recruited by criminals, and even Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour (2017) in a 21^st century take on the war in which some of the 1940s society’s rough edges are smoothed over for today’s audiences. London was set ablaze by the Luftwaffe leaving some 43,000 civilians dead and many more injured. Bristol Coventry, Liverpool, Birmingham, Southampton and Portsmouth were all hit along with a long list of cities from Belfast to Cardiff. And Bath too was hit in what became known as the Baedeker Raids which left more than 400 residents dead and 1,000 or so badly injured. Twerton, Queen’s Square and Stall Street all took huge hits with buildings across the city flattened.

Blitz captures the terror of the indiscriminate carpet bombing from the opening titles as firefighters struggle to contain the fires, while civilians desperate to escape demand to be allowed to take refuge in the London Underground. It has a strong working-class edge to it as female munition workers vocalise their frustrations with officialdom over their safety. And rather than the forces’ sweetheart Rita is the workers’ darling as she sings live into the BBC microphone bringing production to a halt.

To give the story an added dimension George has a black father who is apparently banished confusingly by prejudiced policemen back to Grenada. It leaves George and his white mum subject to the casual racism – something that’s still a problem today. Fans of steam will enjoy the lengthy railway sequences while fans of swing will tap their feet to the band led by Snakehips Johnson (Devon McKenzie-Smith) in the Café de Paris nightclub sequence – before the inevitable happens.

Paul Weller – he of The Jam – is a kindly grandfather to George with a great head of hair and an alarming number of wrinkles – but the ex New Wave guitarist has the right accent for Stepney. And accents are a little bit patchy with some cockney vowels while in general they are smoothed out – the cast of Eastenders do better when it comes to the vocal cords of the East End. Elliott Heffernan as surly George has his work cut out running from various dangers in short trousers but cuts a sympathetic figure as we all hope he’ll find his way out of the flooded underground. At least amongst the gloom he finds help from fellow runaways and a kindly Nigerian ARP warden Ife (Benjamin Clémentine). While Saoirse Ronaan as Rita cuts a glamourous and courageous woman battling racism, bureaucracy and the police as she shines out in the grubby backdrops of browns and greys with her golden hair and determined expression – and appears to be on the brink of a new relationship when a kindly fireman (Harris Dickinson) who saves her from a falling building. All the characters are well defined without any contradictions apart possibly from George who is rude to his mum when he’s evacuated but inwardly loves her – which is the central theme of the film. As a movie as a whole despite the explosions and menace of violent thugs, with a child at the centre of the narrative there’s a sense we’re in safe hands with director Steve McQueen. There’s a feeling that all will be well eventually and things can be put right with a nice cup of tea in a war torn world that left so much death and misery to many – including in Bath.

Harry Mottram

I watched the film at Bath’s Little Theatre one afternoon in November with a number of equally senior citizens. With a long list of snacks, hot and cold drinks at sensible prices and in my case a plastic tumbler of white wine, it’s a very convivial experience. The movie may have been four stars but the cinema I’d give top billing with five stars.

For more on the Little Theatre Picture House Bath visit https://www.picturehouses.com/cinema/little-theatre-cinema

For a trailer of Blitz see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZwykQK9aZo

PS: On a personal note, my parents lived through the Blitz in its various forms. Mother initially was evacuated to Norfolk but like George return home to London after a while and famously climbed a ladder to try to deal with an incendiary bomb on her parent’s roof. My father was in the Home Guard and manned an anti-aircraft gun in Baldwin Street in Bristol and saw the mass destruction and death that the Luftwaffe dished out to the people of the city.