BLITZ, an authentic and astonishing recreation of London during its blitzkrieg by the Germans during World War II, pushes the artistry of Steve McQueen (12 YEARS A SLAVE) to ever more impressive levels. Working on a vast scale, McQueen sets things at human eye level, telling his original tale from the parallel perspectives of working-class single mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) and her nine-year-old son, George (newcomer Elliott Heffernan), as they become separated within the labyrinth of a city under siege. Alternately overwhelming and tender, McQueen’s dazzling film offers a multicultural portrait of 1940s London too infrequently seen on screens. While Ronan and Heffernan emotionally match one another beat for beat, the supporting cast, including Kathy Burke, Benjamin Clémentine, Harris Dickinson, Stephen Graham, Hayley Squires and Paul Weller, is uniformly superb, fleshing out a film that feels positively Dickensian in its scope and storytelling. (Synopsis from the 2024 New York Film Festival)
“It’s a period documented, honoured, and reinterpreted a hundred times on screen before. Yet it’s what [writer-director Steve McQueen] sees and how he sees it, as one of Britain’s most extraordinary filmmakers, that makes BLITZ feel monumental.” —Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent “BLITZ isn’t just a movie, it’s a lot of movie…. I’ve been to whole film festivals with less cinema than Steve McQueen packs into just two hours…. BLITZ deserves all its praise. This is a great motion picture in every sense.” —William Bibbiani, The Wrap “The movie bears comparisons to Dickens, both for George’s plight and for the depiction of class divides across a war-torn London. But there is something else going on narratively here. For one, McQueen makes a point of integrating into the film what is rarely seen in movies of this sort: a sharp depiction of racism among Londoners, the enraging sort that has so calcified it still surfaces when people are just trying to survive.” —Alissa Wilkinson, NYT Critic’s Pick, New York Times “There is an old-fashioned grandness to BLITZ, charged by a cumulative sense of civic toughness and rebellious spirit that always spreads itself over a people, a city, or a country when they are collectively faced with unspeakable tragedies they have to endure. There are signs of that ‘you can’t break me’ spirit everywhere in McQueen’s film….” —Tomris Laffly, The Playlist
