By Charles Kirkland Jr.
A young boy fights to reunite his family during the brutal assault upon England by Germans during World War II in Blitz.
Under the fury of the German blitzkrieg bombing campaign of 1940, working-class single mother Rita grows fearful for her 9-year-old son George’s safety. At the urging of her father, Gerald, she makes the same difficult decision countless families made at the height of World War II. She lovingly but reluctantly sends her child to the countryside until the onslaught subsides. Fearing the worst, George is forced to abandon his safety and journey his way home.
Written and directed by Oscar winner Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave), Blitz stars Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan, Paul Weller, Harris Dickinson, and sensational newcomer Elliott Heffernan. McQueen was inspired to write the script and make this movie based upon a historical photo he came across while visiting a museum In the photo, a young boy was standing alone looking over the damage done by the Nazis during one of their bombing raids of London. McQueen stated that Heffernan, who plays the young boy George, had such an angry intensity in his casting photo that he immediately knew that he was the one to play the role, of the embodiment of the boy he saw in the museum.
The acting in the film is fantastic. Saoirse Ronan is very good at playing Rita, the conflicted mother who is dutifully working and supporting the war effort by making bombs in a factory in the city and at the same time worried about the safety of her son. The star of the movie though is Elliott Heffernan. He plays Rita’s son, George, who experiences severe physical and mental trauma on his journey home, including a series of events that seem to leap out of the pages of a Dickens novel. Heffernan, the product of an intense talent search, plays his role with an incredible amount of fierce tenacity that is then contrasted with a naïve vulnerability and tenderness. This performance exhibits a remarkable range of emotions, challenging for a seasoned actor much less a child, and even more so for a first-time actor.
The subtext for the film is the fact that George is Black, the child of a Welsh woman and a Jamaican father. The fact that he is a mixed-race child seems to fuel anger for the boy and also causes the audience to wonder if the things that happened to him would happen to a child who was not Black.
Nonetheless, it is a clever plot device to keep the audience engaged in the child’s story and forces them to root for George to overcome. This is the complex, layered storytelling that we are used to having in a McQueen film.
If there is one detraction, it would be that George’s journey is so eventful that it borders on the line of incredulity. Even the reason George cites for going back home seems to be a little phony and maybe disingenuous. Cleverly, when the questions start to arise, George is thrown into so much action that the audience gives it a pass.
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements including some racism, violence, some strong language, brief sexuality, and smoking, Blitz is an expected surprise that entertains and educates at the same time. It is a purposely messy and ugly historical drama that exposes some of the darkest times of World War II.
Grade: B