Blitz (2024) Review: Steve McQueen’s Latest Movie is a Well-Acted But Surprisingly Unremarkable World War II Drama

Blitz marks Steve McQueen’s highly-anticipated return to feature filmmaking after a few detours into directing television miniseries (Small Axe, Uprising), a short film (Grenfell) and a documentary film (Occupied City). That would be McQueen’s first in six years since his heist thriller Widows back in 2018.

On paper, Blitz looks like it’s going to be another winner for McQueen: It stars Saoirse Ronan while the movie takes place during World War II and the last time McQueen directed a historical feature led him to Oscar glory in 12 Years a Slave. Well, I hate to say this but Blitz turns out to be a rare misfire for McQueen, whose winning streak since making his promising debut in Hunger has finally screeched to a halt.

McQueen, who also wrote the screenplay, sounds potential enough: Set during World War II in London, 1940, we learn that Rita (Saoirse Ronan) along with her 9-year-old son George (newcomer Elliot Heffernan) and Rita’s father Gerald (Paul Weller) are forced to evacuate their home following a German raid bombing the city of London. To ensure the safety of his son, the otherwise reluctant George would have to leave the city to join other children aboard a designated train ride to someplace safe. However, George subsequently decides to jump off the moving train and risks himself heading back home.

Throughout his journey, he meets different people from a bunch of kids hiding in one of the train compartments to a good-hearted Nigerian soldier named Ife (Benjamin Clémentine). Meanwhile, Rita tries her best to live her life as usual while hoping for her son’s safety. She continues working in the munitions factory and after work, her friends and colleagues convince her to let loose a little and have fun.

First things first, McQueen does a good job depicting the horror of the war right from the get-go, evidently in the impressively staged opening sequence where the firefighters are trying to put out the fire in the building while having trouble with the out-of-control water hose twisting violently after one of them losing his grips. Another scene, which takes place much later in the movie, revolves around the water gushing through the walls of the underground train station and flooding the area, leaving the passengers who decided to camp overnight for the next train scrambling to safety.

Technically speaking, Adam Stockhausen’s production design is top notch while Yorick Le Saux’s cinematography perfectly captured the wartime 1940s era of London. Credits also equally goes to Jacqueline Durran for her period-appropriate costume design and Hans Zimmer’s score alternates between dramatic and dread-inducing musical compositions.

Saoirse Ronan delivers a fine performance as the sympathetic mother Rita while Elliot Heffernan impresses in his promising acting debut as George. Benjamin Clémentine deserves equal mention here in his wonderfully earnest small role as Ife, who tries to help George get back home while providing him a temporary shelter.

And yet, it’s hard to ignore the huge gap of its many shortcomings in this otherwise technically proficient and well-acted historical war drama. The story itself is surprisingly bland in its execution with George’s journey isn’t as harrowing as I would imagine for a movie that takes place during World War II. The other side of the story, which focuses on Rita’s daily routine of coping with her worries about George while attempting to stay focused between her work and personal time simply goes through the motions.

Given McQueen’s calibre, I was expecting he would delve deeper into Rita and George’s respective story and character arcs, especially how the seemingly indefinite separation between a mother and a son would be deeply felt from within. No doubt a missed opportunity and not to mention its two-hour length tends to suffer from a sluggish pace.

Blitz is currently streaming on Apple TV+.