This major new film about London’s World War Two bombing ‘doesn’t ring true’

Steve McQueen’s epic drama, which premiered at the London Film Festival, seeks to shed new light on what happened, but contains “many of the traditional period drama clichés” .

As an Oscar-winning director 12 years of slaverySteve McQueen is an expert at approaching famous historical horrors from revelatory new angles, and an expert at combining mainstream thrills with innovation reminiscent of his early career as a groundbreaking visual artist. I’ve proven that. That’s what he tries to do again with the opening film, Blitz. london film festival. A major drama about the bombing of London by German planes during World War II, it explores what it was like to endure such an ordeal, one that people continue to endure today. They’re trying to show us once again, and they’re almost successful. There are certainly enough unique and inspired sequences to make it worth a watch. But “Blitz” doesn’t have the same impact as “The Night Goes” or McQueen’s other films (“The Hunger”, “Shame”). One obvious difference is that “The Night Falls” is based on the record of one person’s life, whereas “Blitz” seems to be based on an entire library of research material. For a director who also wrote the screenplay, there’s too much material to summarize. An engaging story with a consistent tone.

The main character is George (Elliot Heffernan), a nine-year-old mixed-race boy who lives in the working-class east end of London with his white mother Rita, played by Saoirse Ronan, and his grandfather, played by Locke. Roll legend Paul Weller. (He is competent enough, but I can think of 20 suitable actors off the top of my head who would have done a better job.) In September 1940, George’s family announced that he would not be with them any longer. Deciding that it is not safe, he has to join the many evacuees who are crammed onto a train headed for the countryside. But George has other ideas and decides to jump off the train and return to London. But traveling alone around the capital is always dangerous enough for a nine-year-old. It’s much more dangerous when bombs are being dropped.

The most surprising thing about “Blitz” is that part of it could have come from an old-fashioned children’s adventure movie, a hilarious tale that might have been shown on TV on a holiday afternoon. The film has vague child actors, tear-jerking sentimentality, and many of the traditional historical drama clichés. Immaculate pubs and houses that look like they’ve been rebuilt in a museum, perfectly clean, perfectly fitting clothes. So many people wear it. In short, it’s not true. Just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with this kind of frenetic family entertainment, but you need a conventionally engaging plot that goes with a conventional setting, and McQueen has I can’t calm down.

Blitz is at times a dark Dickensian tale starring Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke as a pair of grotesque marauders. At times, it’s a feel-good feminist yarn about brave women standing up for themselves in a munitions factory. And sometimes, at its nerve-wracking best, it’s a grim depiction of a situation where death could come at any time. But it’s more like a scrapbook, or an anthology of wartime reminiscences, than a fully realized film. Too many scenes don’t connect to anything else in the film, regularly drawing viewers away from George’s perilous journey with over-the-top flashbacks, slick political speeches, and even some extended musical numbers. , too many characters are loosely drawn. Then it was thrown aside. Harris Dickinson moves around in the background as the ARP warden who carries the torch for Rita, and Hayley Squires is a stock cockney sparrow. They both deserve better. Even George doesn’t have much character development, and Ronan, who has amazing chameleon-like talents, has little to do other than wander around London quietly admiring various paintings that don’t fit into the plot. do not have.

Even if McQueen isn’t sure what story he’s really trying to tell or what tone he’s going for, he’s definitely sure of one point. It’s about the racial diversity of London at the time. This is worth pointing out, considering how much cheating there has been in World War II movies over the decades. But like everything else in Blitz, McQueen doesn’t aim for the most powerful way to do it. The record of racism that George faced during his travels may have been a huge shock, but it’s not until viewers stop immersing themselves in the mother and son’s desperate plight that many of the characters appear in the film. In the setting, that message repeats in less and less subtle ways. You start to feel like you’re in a lecture hall and are being told a bunch of anecdotes instead. The movie is entertaining and informative, but the bomb blasts don’t upset you any more than they should.