Review | Apple TV+ movie review: Blitz – Saoirse Ronan stars in Steve McQueen’s World War II drama
Steve McQueen’s Blitz places a young black boy at the centre of this second world war-set film as he makes his way back to his mother
4/5 stars
Last year British director Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame) engaged viewers with stories from the second world war in Occupied City, a four-hour documentary that focused on Amsterdam, his adopted home.
Now he returns to the conflict – and to the city he grew up in – with Blitz. Set in 1940, when the German Nazi forces bombed London night after night, the film is a Dickensian tale that blends the intimate with the epic.
Like so many children, George is evacuated to the countryside but, unwilling to be separated from his mother, he jumps from the train to make his way back to the city.
So begins a picaresque journey in which George meets folk both kind and cruel, including Stephen Graham as a Fagin-like character who leads a gang of thieves stealing jewellery from corpses.
