鈥淏濒颈迟锄,鈥� set in London during World War II, might technically be 鈥檚 first war movie. But struggle and survival has long marked the filmmaker鈥檚 tough and tortured work.
No matter the circumstance 鈥� slavery in the 1960s-1980s London of West Indian immigrants in the Irish hunger strike of 鈥淪hame鈥� 鈥� McQueen has been drawn to moments of history less for their dramatic extremes than for how they test the morality of those in and around the fight. Did they turn a blind eye? Did they risk themselves? Do we remember?
McQueen鈥檚 films tend to ask questions 鈥� often uncomfortable ones. That鈥檚 been true in his nonfiction work, too. His 2023 short film 鈥淕renfell鈥� captured the aftermath of the tragic Grenfell Tower blaze. Last year鈥檚 compared present-day street addresses in Amsterdam to what happened in those precise locations during the Nazi occupation of WWII.
In that film, McQueen juxtaposed past and present, death and life, and some of the same collisions are found in the 1940-set which opens Friday in theaters and streams Nov. 22 on Apple TV+. It鈥檚 told largely from the perspective of a 9-year-old boy, George (Elliott Heffernan), whose single mother, Rita (a steely ), has made the anguished decision to send him to the countryside with thousands of other schoolchildren fleeing the Blitz.
A year into the war, the bombing is already intense, and so is the questionable nature of how some are responding to the omnipresent danger and the loosening of order. The film opens in a fiery blaze as firefighters wrestle with an out-of-control hose, and a mass of people rush toward the underground to take cover from the bombers overhead. Outside the station, the gates are locked, and the nearby police refuse to open them. It鈥檚 an early hint that McQueen鈥檚 treatment of the war will be more complicated and unsparing than the average WWII drama.
鈥淏litz鈥� properly gets underway once Rita leaves George at the train station. The parting is bitter (鈥淚 hate you,鈥� George says on the platform) only because their bond is so evidently strong. It鈥檚 not long once aboard the train that George sees a chance to flee and hops off. 鈥淏litz鈥� proceeds as George鈥檚 odyssey in trying to get home.
It鈥檚 an awkwardly condensed tale 鈥� the film takes place over one day but feels like a lifetime 鈥� that clunkily cuts between George and Rita. 鈥淏litz鈥� feels stuck between a conventional war drama and something more adventurous and probing. It doesn鈥檛 coalesce the way McQueen鈥檚 best work does, but the frictions that drive 鈥淏litz鈥� make it a singular and sporadically moving experience.
A representative sequence happens early in the film. George, who鈥檚 Black and surely feels some growing anxiety leaving London, climbs into a passing train only to find three young brothers are also stowaways there. After a tense moment, they find camaraderie together. Riding atop the train, they seem almost carefree. But moments later, when they鈥檙e fleeing authorities at the trainyard, one of the boys is killed in an instant by a moving train.
Throughout, 鈥淏litz鈥� toggles between moments of tenderness and violence, a back and forth that McQueen suggests isn鈥檛 just part of wartime. Following the trainyard moment, the film slides into a flashback of Rita and George鈥檚 otherwise unseen Grenadian immigrant father, Marcus (CJ Beckford). On their way home from a joyous night dancing at a jazz club, a man intentionally bumps into Marcus. In the ensuing tussle Marcus is arrested, and later, swiftly deported. In an instant, cruelty and racism can wreck a life just as surely as a Nazi bomb from above.
The film stays close to George as he makes his way closer to home in Stepney Green in the East End. 鈥淏litz鈥� is far less concerned with the aerial bombardment above than the festering prejudices and injustices on the ground. In the movie鈥檚 most Dickens-esque sequence, George is taken in, and held prisoner, by a Fagin-like criminal (Stephen Graham) whose band of thieves steal from the dead and plunder freshly bombed-out flats. There are chillingly ghostly sequences, most of all one set in the Caf茅 de Paris. One moment it鈥檚 a teaming, multiracial jazz club, the next 鈥� as captured in one sweeping, grotesque shot by Yorick Le Saux 鈥� it鈥檚 a bloody ruin.
There are moments of uplift, or at least temporary relief. One comes when Rita, who works in a munitions factory with a Rosie the Riveter headscarf, sings for a BBC radio program from the factory floor. Once Rita learns that George is lost, there鈥檚 an ill-fitting side plot of her feuding with an unsympathetic boss, arguing with those in charge of the evacuation and her attempting to find George with the help of a police officer (Harris Dickinson, in a role too vague to resonate).
Again and again we see, though, that going against a tide of indifference takes the conviction and courage of individuals. That includes the activist Mikey Davies (Leigh Gill), who makes a stirring speech in a shelter. And, most of all, it includes a Nigerian ARP warden Ife (Benjamin Cl茅mentine), who George meets outside a store advertising coffee and sugar from Africa with caricatures of Black faces. Cl茅mentine, the talented singer-songwriter, has a radiant presence that warms a fiercely unsentimental film. Ife imbues George with a pride and confidence with himself as a young Black man. For his part, the young Heffernan shows no strain in carrying the movie, his first.
Ultimately, that there is a war on in 鈥淏litz鈥� may not be its defining feature. The London under siege in McQueen's film is as much at risk from injustice as it is German planes. For George, Rita and the others pushing back, resistance isn't just wartime survival. It's a way of life.
鈥淏濒颈迟锄,鈥� an Apple Studios release is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for thematic elements including some racism, violence, some strong language, brief sexuality and smoking. Running time: 120 minutes. Three stars out of four.
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
