Blitz – A vital frag­ment of the Steve McQueen saga

Acad­e­my Award win­ner Steve McQueen returns with wartime odyssey, Blitz, retelling key moments of the siege on the cap­i­tal dur­ing World War Two as seen through the eyes of a bira­cial 9‑year-old boy flee­ing evac­u­a­tion orders. New­com­er Elliot Hef­fer­nan, who plays our hero George, deliv­ers a cap­ti­vat­ing per­for­mance, shoul­der­ing the at-times-unwieldy peri­od dra­ma with the same direct­ness and con­fi­dence as its direc­tor. Beside McQueen him­self, a big draw for audi­ences will be Saorise Ronan who slips seam­less­ly into the role of east-ender Rita, moth­er of George and daugh­ter of Paul Weller’s piano-play­ing club croon­er Ger­ald. Yet there’s per­haps a mite too lit­tle for Ronan to actu­al­ly sink her teeth into.

The sto­ry unfolds over a day or so, with muni­tions fac­to­ry work­er Rita reluc­tant­ly evac­u­at­ing George to the coun­try­side. The racist taunts from oth­er chil­dren on the train are enough to have George leap­ing off it and on a quest to reunite with his moth­er. McQueen has the utmost respect for Black chil­dren, and it’s George’s agency, not his help­less­ness in these sit­u­a­tions that leads us to the under­bel­ly of blitz-era Lon­don, where we encounter every­thing from corpse-rob­bing Kathy Burke and Stephen Gra­ham in full hor­ri­fy­ing Dick­en­sian garb, to flood­ed-out tube sta­tions where civil­ians attempt­ed to shelter.

McQueen is a his­to­ry buff, and young George lives a leg­endary 24 hours, with his­tor­i­cal events and fig­ures (Ben­jamin Clementine’s majes­tic ARP war­den Ife being one) col­laged into his sto­ry. How­ev­er it’s worth not­ing that this is McQueen’s first fea­ture film with­out a co-writer, and while his lens is as inci­sive and con­fronta­tion­al as ever – despite an Apple TV lac­quer on the over­all look of the pic­ture – there are moments of heavy-hand­ed­ness where more restraint may be desired.

Reflect­ing on McQueen’s oeu­vre, Blitz is a clear cul­mi­na­tion of his great­est pas­sions, the film itself feel­ing at once fresh and well-trod­den. Ronan has nev­er looked more glam­orous or sen­su­al than when danc­ing in a Black 1930s night­club, the cam­era as viva­cious as the dancers, a scene that we would have been hap­py to sit in for the length of the pic­ture. Hans Zimmer’s score is terse and dynam­ic, pro­pelling us along on George’s voy­age, and the broad­er cast are a delight to wit­ness with Hay­ley Squires’ Til­da steal­ing every scene she’s in.

At a time when so-called colour blind peri­od dra­mas are seen as a ​‘win’, it feels all the more reliev­ing to watch a film that tries its hand at hon­esty. We know the text­books are less than a half-truth, but McQueen has cher­ry-picked his­to­ry too, and true to form only the sour fruit is served back to us with finesse.

It’s only in recent years that McQueen has begun mak­ing films about Lon­don, most notably with the 2020 Small Axe anthol­o­gy which boasts mas­ter­pieces such as Man­grove and Lover’s Rock, but also with the doc­u­men­tary series Upris­ing, about the tragedy of the 1981 New Cross Fire and its after­math, and the 2023 art film Gren­fell which depicts the remains of the Gren­fell Tow­er and the Year 3 project that show­cas­es the young faces of our cities future.

The acces­si­bil­i­ty of these works, avail­able on the BBC or free in gal­leries, is cru­cial, as is the acces­si­bil­i­ty of a glossy peri­od dra­ma. While it’s unlike­ly McQueen would admit to some grand agen­da, Blitz is cer­tain­ly an exten­sion of his work in record­ing the present and reshap­ing what we know of our past.