I'm an avid fan of Saoirse Ronan as an actress, especially on account of her work in "Brooklyn". I'm always keeping an eye on her portfolio, since I see overflowing potential with the stories she's a part of. So when director Steve McQueen's WWII drama "Blitz" was announced, I was intrigued to see another side to this well documented war that we don't see very often: the role of women that either were or weren't on the battlefields. We got a taste of that with "A League of Their Own", but we don't get many other films to accompany it.
The central narrative, entailing a young kid of mixed race being sent out of London to avoid the bombings, can work. The trick is not leaning into obvious plot templates that will undermine the narrative drive. When I glanced at some of the review scores from both critics and audiences, it was all over the board. Some critics showering near perfect scores for its themes, while some users review bombed it for being "woke" and "unrealistic". Yeah, this is why people keep saying the Internet is a toxic place.
Let me say this right now. When I criticize a piece of art for not being up to par, I'm not doing it out of pure malice or for serving a political agenda. I'm doing it because I'm helping the consumer, regardless of who they are, in making a decision about if they should see a film or not. I wanted to get into "Blitz" for the reasons that I mentioned above. Coming from someone who is open-minded and wanted to like this, I must admit that "Blitz" is a missed opportunity.
I can summarize my bitter disappointment in this film with one reason. Any plot elements that I wanted to explore more of get barely any screen time at all. The plot points that do receive the most attention are either frustrating or formulaic. Ronan plays the mother of the kid who has to be sent out of the country for safety, per their war response. After her kid is elsewhere, she lands a position at a bomb factory. This is delving into territory that I personally want to write a script out of one day.
I wanted more time on Ronan and her plight to make ends meet. While not perfect, I can see the daily factory routine being great, if given the proper attention. My wish was cut short at the halfway point however, when we learn we won't see this factory again for spoiler related reasoning. At this point, I'm already let down. Meanwhile, most of the screen time has our lead kid running away from everyone. He escapes the train from mean kids, save for one nice girl that could've been cool if she didn't have just one minute of screen time.
Later on in the story, the same kid meets a black British guard. This guy not only has more screen time, but his character has a nice monologue in the underground camps. He basically states his duty to make sure everyone keeps the peace and sets an example against their common enemy. That speech was appropriate given the hatred that their oppressors were spreading. His character would be great for the remainder of the story. But for no reason whatsoever, the kid runs away....again! We only see this guard again in a dream sequence. Ugh.
It's through this pattern outlined in the past few paragraphs that I realize that this film is deliberately trolling me. I'll agree with some negative user reviews on one specific point. I'm so sick and tired of Hollywood's overreliance on narratives about blacks surviving oppression from whites over their color. "Blitz" suffers the same problem as films such as "The Hate U Give", "The Butler" and others of the ilk. It's subliminally continuing to encourage the problem that its narrative is arguing to end, rather than actually solving it.
In this day and age, more narratives like "Black Panther" celebrate black culture and set it in the right direction. And no matter how just their cause, films about their oppression are no longer enough. In the case of "Blitz", the race element isn't well utilized anyways, regardless of which angle you look at it. It also doesn't help that the main kid himself is irate and poorly realized. I don't blame Elliott Heffernan as much as I blame the script.
We're unable to understand his frustrating motive for running away from everyone he contacts, besides wanting to reunite with his mom. Even then, he became quite angry with her over being put in this predicament, so I don't even buy that all the way. It's not that "Blitz" is an incompetent production. Save for some fuzzy CGI and green screen shots, the production is authentic to the era it's representing. Ronan does her best with the limited screen time she has.
That's another frustration I have is how underused Ronan is in this film. "Blitz" is a personal letdown for me on account of its incomplete screenplay. Character motivations are left in the dark even after they started to take shape. Not enough time is spent on the aspects we want to see, and too much time on tired material we've seen before. What we have is a variation on "Empire of the Sun", where we see WWII through a child's perspective. The difference is that this kid is half-black. And to that I say, so what?
Final Verdict: 5.5/10
For the record, I wanted to give a higher score to this film going in. But after composing this article, this is the best I could do. Sorry, not sorry.
Komentáře