After last Tuesday’s election, I felt like getting blitzed. Instead, I went to see “Blitz.”
As noted earlier, Saoirse Ronan’s character in “The Outrun” was so smashed it made me uncomfortable. In fact, I felt the same way watching Mark Eydelshteyn’s character Vanya in “Anora.” I simply do not enjoy watching alcohol and drugs ruin people’s real or imagined lives.
Good news: Saoirse Ronan is back, and she is more sober than ever. If nothing else, air raids and autocrats do command attention. Anyway, “Blitz” tells a fascinating family separation story, given the actual history behind it.
The essential backstory here begins immediately after Germany’s defeat of France in the summer of 1940. Seeking to conquer the United Kingdom next, Hitler seeks control of the skies over the English Channel in the Battle of Britain.
Luckily for us all, the Royal Air Force outmaneuvers the Germans. However Hitler then authorizes the Blitz, from blitzkrieg, German for “lightning war.”
In the film, Ronan plays Rita, mother to George, played by 11-year-old Elliott Heffernan. Rita and George live with her father (Paul Weller) in East London.
What makes “Blitz” so remarkable is how it is told through George’s eyes. And Heffernan’s performance as a biracial child sent to the English countryside by his own mother will grab your attention and hold it for dear life.
Written and directed by Steve McQueen, the timing of “Blitz” comes as the once and future Oval Occupant faces similar issues McQueen captures here. So if anyone in the once and future Oval Occupant’s orbit happens to read this, I beg you to see “Blitz.”
Addressing wartime evacuation, racism, and children’s survival all at once, “Blitz” left me with these takeaways:
First and foremost, I hope we all still agree war is terrifying. When it is also relentless and civilians targeted, I believe public expectations of political leadership ratchet up, in order to limit all casualties and bring hostilities to an end.
Second, children are incredibly resilient. In a scene that moved me to tears, George embraces his Blackness after witnessing an air-raid warden keep the racial peace in a crowded underground shelter. Played with reassuring gentleness by Benjamin Clementine, the character Ife will move you, too.
Simply put, if you liked “Lee,” you will also like “Blitz.” Saoirse Ronan shines in “Blitz,” singing and dancing in several scenes outside her character’s munitions factory job. For this reason alone, I truly enjoyed her performance as Rita.
It seems quite possible Ronan could receive two acting nominations this year. If I had to bet, “The Outrun” could garner her a nomination for best actress, while “Blitz” seems more likely to produce a supporting-role nod. And do not be surprised if Heffernan picks up a nomination, either. His star power burns so bright already.
“Blitz” opens this Friday at The Triplex for a limited engagement.
