‘Blitz’ Makes Little Impact

Oscar bait — noun. A term for cliché dramas and skin-deep films aiming for critical acclaim. Examples include “The Green Book,” “Maestro” and now “Blitz.”

Written and directed by Steve McQueen, “Blitz” follows a mother and son enduring the bombings of London during World War II, known as “The Blitz.”

While aiding the British war effort, munitions worker Rita sends her son George to the countryside to avoid the bombing campaign. George escapes his departing train, however, and endeavors to return home while Rita helps surviving Londoners.

Rita’s narrative is singular. The widowed mother, played by Saoirse Ronan, maintains a social circle, dips her toe into romance and volunteers for underground relief groups. Rita’s work-life balance underlines citizen resilience, even in times of war.

Ronan (“Lady Bird,” “See How They Run”) depicts Rita as a composed survivalist. Ronan layers distress beneath a measured, resolute attitude. When Rita discovers George’s truancy, she tirelessly tracks him down between the city shellings.

Navigating the vast skeleton of London, George meets unique characters who shepherd his journey, similar to “Oliver Twist.” Between the vignettes, the 9-year-old accepts his identity as a multiracial child, despite the racism of English society.

Elliott Heffernan gives a rattling debut as George. Heffernan conveys George’s boyish delight in flashbacks, contrasting his detached state when navigating the city’s bombing.

McQueen visualizes the London bombings in cataclysmic fashion. McQueen (“12 Years a Slave,” “Widows”) follows the setpieces with striking fluidity as each impact wreaks havoc on buildings, riversides and scrambling citizens.

“Blitz” is at its best when illustrating its title event. Blossoming fires and ensuing floods breed an immeasurable tension — undercut by the rest of the film.

Despite its harrowing sequences and compelling performances, the film’s narrative is disappointingly trite.

The characters George meets are one-note caricatures, underdeveloped by brief appearances and voided by their fleeting impact. George similarly falls flat as a character due to unexplored motivations and an omnipresent, blank expression of discontent.

Ronan is criminally underutilized as Rita. Her character never evolves past a perturbed mother helping those around her. The film barely scrapes the surface of the societal and psychological ramifications of Rita attempting to live a normal life during The Blitz.

In fact, “Blitz” often forgets The Blitz altogether. The narrative that fills the long bouts between bombings wildly shifts focus in both tone and theme. 

George grapples with his Black identity when learning Britain’s history of African apartheid. Between those lessons he’s imparted personal accountability and a skepticism of authority. Rita’s narrative touches on gender work disparities and forming new relationships in grief. Yet her storyline also references political ideologies with charity being misunderstood as socialism.

“Blitz” gives none of these ideas any air to breathe. The rapid cycle of themes leads to hamfisted messages. Unsubtle exposition muddles serious topics, making it seem more parody than genuine discussion.

The film’s tone is similarly uncommitted. “Blitz” is whimsical when George plays with other kids, comical when he joins a group of thieves and downright dour when he discovers corpses left by the bombings.

Rita’s storyline likewise follows a mismatched pattern — at once flirtatious, inspiring and mortifying. If McQueen wanted to evoke the many emotions felt in war, a TV format would’ve allowed greater depth than the movie’s two-hour runtime.

“Blitz” is a harrowing feat of explosive filmmaking and shell-shocking sequences. However, the scenes that fill the gaps underwhelm in their blatant appeal to critics by covering the broadest of topics with the shortest of strokes.

When the dust of Oscar season settles, “Blitz” will end up too childish to be a war drama, yet too obscene to be shown in a history class.

“Blitz” comes to theaters Nov. 8 and will debut on Apple TV+ Nov. 22.