Blitz Review: Steve McQueen’s World War II Drama Feels Both Massive and Empty

   November 22, 2024

Steve McQueen’s Blitz is an ambitious and sprawling narrative that balances the intimacy of a personal journey with the grandeur of historical drama. Known for his ability to craft emotionally resonant stories on a massive scale, McQueen flexes his filmmaking brilliance this time around by placing the viewer in the chaos and heartbreak of wartime London. The film centers on George (Elliott Heffernan), a young boy determined to reunite with his mother amid the devastating Blitz, using his story to anchor a larger one of human resilience, fear, and hope.

Blitz review
Saoirse Ronan and Elliott Heffernan in Blitz (2024), directed by Steve McQueen

The film’s scale is breathtaking, with meticulously crafted sets and harrowing depictions of bombed-out London that immerse you in the era’s destruction and uncertainty. McQueen’s attention to detail—whether in the visceral sound design of air raids or the intricate period costumes—grounds the film in historical authenticity while amplifying its emotional stakes. Yet, the movie remains deeply personal, ensuring that George’s journey is not overshadowed by the war but rather intertwined with it.

Through George’s perspective, Blitz explores themes of survival, family, and the enduring human spirit. It’s a film that reminds us of the individual lives behind monumental historical events, and McQueen’s bold storytelling ensures that it feels both epic and deeply human.

But this duality is where Blitz distinguishes itself within Steve McQueen’s filmography. The decision to center the narrative around George—a child whose innocence clashes against the brutal backdrop of wartime destruction—imbues the film with a unique tone that sets it apart from McQueen’s typically harrowing movies. While his previous films often delve into bleak, unflinching realities, Blitz carries a surprising sense of adventure and discovery, albeit one shadowed by immense peril.

The youthful lens provides moments of hope and curiosity that feel new for McQueen, even as the film remains grounded in the horrors of war. He draws parallels to Education, but where that entry from Small Axe was a tightly focused exploration of systemic injustice in a child’s life, Blitz must tackle a much broader and more chaotic landscape. The extended runtime allows McQueen to navigate this tension between innocence and devastation, crafting a layered narrative that reflects George’s gradual loss of naivety while still clinging to a childlike determination.

But unfortunately, Blitz doesn’t fully deliver on the emotional depth expected from a Steve McQueen film. While the grand set designs and sweeping visuals are undeniably impressive, the story often feels like it’s playing second fiddle to the spectacle. Instead of the raw, grueling atmosphere that typically defines McQueen’s work, Blitz feels surprisingly more Spielbergian—or even Sam Mendes-esque—in its approach, focusing on polished storytelling and broader emotional beats rather than the intricate, weighty details McQueen usually excels at.

This shift in tone leaves the film feeling rushed, as though McQueen is more concerned with hitting major plot points than letting the story breathe or the characters develop naturally. The result is a film that sacrifices nuance for momentum, gliding over moments that could have been mined for deeper emotional resonance. While Blitz is undeniably ambitious in scope and execution, it lacks the distinctive grit and emotional heft that have made McQueen’s previous films so impactful.

One of the challenges Blitz faces is the casting of Elliott Heffernan in the lead role, a departure from the typical star power anchoring Steve McQueen’s films. McQueen’s previous works have been elevated by powerhouse performances from actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor, Viola Davis, and Michael Fassbender, whose magnetic portrayals brought depth and gravitas to his stories.

Heffernan delivers a commendable performance as young George, capturing the innocence and determination of a child navigating a war-torn city. However, his role doesn’t quite fill the void left by the absence of a commanding, show-stopping presence that could have grounded the film’s sweeping narrative. The lack of that kind of transformative performance leaves Blitz feeling somewhat less impactful, with an emotional core that doesn’t resonate as strongly as McQueen’s past films.

While Heffernan is effective in his own right, the absence of a marquee, award-worthy performance at the film’s center creates an unshakable sense that something is missing, preventing Blitz from reaching the emotional and dramatic heights it aspires to.

It’s surprising that neither Saoirse Ronan nor Harris Dickinson quite step in to fill the performance void at the heart of Blitz. Saoirse Ronan, whose career is marked by deeply emotional and layered performances in films like Lady Bird and Little Women, delivers a turn here that feels too restrained, almost as if she’s holding back. Her typically nuanced approach doesn’t find room to flourish in a film that seems more preoccupied with the chaos of its setting than with giving her character the space to fully resonate.

Similarly, Harris Dickinson is saddled with a role that feels like an afterthought, leaving him underutilized and disconnected from the film’s emotional core. It’s a shame because Dickinson has shown in recent years that he’s capable of anchoring films with quiet strength and complexity like Scrapper, Triangle of Sadness, and The Iron Claw. In Blitz, however, his character seems to exist more to service the plot than to contribute meaningful depth to the narrative.

Ultimately, Blitz appears more invested in the grandeur of its spectacle—the explosions, the set pieces, and the visual recreation of wartime London—than in crafting compelling characters at its center. This focus on scale over substance leaves the film feeling hollow at times, as it struggles to balance its ambition with the human stories that should give it heart.

For all its narrative shortcomings, Blitz reaffirms that Steve McQueen is a master of crafting immersive, detailed worlds. The film’s set pieces are staggering, with wartime London brought to life in vivid, visceral detail. McQueen captures the infrastructure and atmosphere with such precision that it feels entirely lived-in, evoking memories of his work on the Small Axe series. While the material here is distinct, the same meticulous attention to historical authenticity is on full display.

That said, this seamless execution might also be why Blitz occasionally feels like McQueen is operating on auto-pilot. He’s proven time and again that he can build worlds across different time periods and settings with unmatched confidence. The British infrastructure and wartime chaos are so flawlessly rendered that they almost overshadow the story being told within them. This mastery of craft, while impressive, leaves you yearning for McQueen to push his boundaries further.

It would be exciting to see McQueen return to a contemporary setting, as he did in Widows, where the urgency of modern themes added a fresh, dynamic layer to his storytelling. In Blitz, the historical backdrop, while stunning, doesn’t carry the same weight without the kind of deeply human stories he’s capable of telling. A modern canvas might reignite the unpredictability and emotional punch that McQueen so effortlessly delivered in his earlier work.

Blitz is far too accomplished to be dismissed as a bad film, but it does fall short of the emotional resonance and character depth that have defined Steve McQueen’s best work. The film feels less personal, less piercingly human, than what we’ve come to expect from him. It’s undeniably his least McQueen-like film, as the treacherous conditions and weighty, downbeat tone that often characterize his storytelling are notably muted here.

The increased scale and grandeur of the production are technically impressive, yet paradoxically, the stakes feel smaller and less consequential. The human stories at the core of Blitz are overshadowed by the spectacle of its meticulously crafted set pieces. McQueen has created a visually striking portrait of wartime London, but it doesn’t carry the same raw emotional weight as films like 12 Years a Slave or the Small Axe series.

While Blitz is far from a failure, it doesn’t quite live up to the expectations of being a showstopping awards-season contender. Instead, it lands as a solid, well-crafted effort that lacks the transformative power and emotional depth that have made McQueen one of the most distinctive voices in modern cinema.

Score: 6/10

Movies like Blitz (2024)

Movies like Blitz include Civil War (2024), Dunkirk (2017), and The Zone of Interest (2023).

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