Year: 2024
Director: Steve McQueen
Oh dear. “A masterpiece” gushed, apparently, The Independent, leaving me to wonder within what context. Possibly of hype? It is possible it would have been better on a big screen, given the no expense spared sets, which were, I will concede, very good. But where was the story? Yes, there was the synopsis of a story, but rather than adding any depth, it was left to cliche to pad it all out. And, whenever a lull came, and there were many, someone would break into song. Praise be, these moments were pertinent to the “plot”, rather than the random ghastliness of a musical, but, Lordy, weren’t there loads of ‘em. Talking of musicals, the lift from Oliver was especially vile, rendered only watchable in the way a carcrash can capture attention. What was Stephen Graham thinking, as he Bill Sykesed through an unconvincing accent. And is that Kathy Burke as Fagin, or Waynetta Fagin, as we irecognised her? Nice to see Ho from Slow Horses, mind. At least they weren’t required to sing. Neither, much, was Paul Weller, much trumpeted appearance in the media. He spent most of his time tinkling on a joanna, with a bonus positive of never referring to it as that. Me and Mrs P had an agreement we would switch off, if he had.He certainly looked the part, though, as a Granpa geezer with a heart of, well, wood, really, like his acting. The boy Heffernan, brother of the fella in Brassic and Bad Sisters, had the difficult task of carrying the bulk of the narrative. It was rather more responsibility than he should have been given, but the adults were all so irredeemably 2D. He was fine, but it felt all a bit Italia Conte stage school.
One thing I haven’t mentioned is the naïveté with which McQueen broad brushes in the integral race aspect. You’d expect him to, and it is undoubtedly an important theme. But this was helicoptered in with such cartoonish unsubtlety as to deny the validity required and sought.
So, nah, it’s a no from me. It’ll still win stacks of awards.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
Dunkirk. The film, not the event, obviously.
Forgive the odd typo, not least as I can’t remember how to edit a post.
You might try the odd paragraph break too 😏
Nice review, I’m more convinced not to bother seeing it now.
Hi retro. I haven’t seen or read any pre publicity about this movie. Is it about the WW2 blitz in London – or the Blitz Club/Blitz kids? I can’t really tell from your review. Thanks.
Edit to add: apologies – just spotted the “might appeal to…”.
As you were…
The clever money at our local cinema is:
Avoid British films, avoid local films, avoid any film about the war.
Really, and there’s no getting away from it, avoid any film that old, white people would go to. Yikes, if they go to Blitz (and they will, in their droves), they’ll be shocked to see the main character is black – that won’t go down well – and, apparently, it’s insanely loud.
I was close to having to see Blitz (I was dreaming up excuses not to have to, even though it has the wonderful Saoirse Ronan on board), but one of the younger members of staff gave me the same withering look she offered when describing Wicked Little Letters and I took the hint.
Them withering looks are worth a thousand reviews.
Re Saoirse Ronan, who I agree is generally a magnetic presence. I confess I didn’t recognise her at all in this, she having more the ambience of a a bit part player from a cockernee feel good Sunday night series on the beeb.
I sat next to her in The afterword haunt The Laurieston pub LAST YEAR. HeR partner Jack Lowden was there as well AND ON THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME!
I enjoyed Wicked Little Letters and part of the fun was spotting local landmarks around us: Worthing and Arundel mainly.
Another vote for Wicked Little Letters. We saw it as a family (2 fifty somethings and 2 16 year olds) and all loved it. A proper film with excellent performances, beautifully shot and good script. You’d have to have a heart of stone to not like it.
Another up vote. All four of us all loved it. Several laugh out loud moments and some fascinating new swears.
Agreed.
A sweatier version of those wonderful comedies EalingStudios
Used to make in the 40s and 50s
You people! If you thought Blitz was clichéd….
I agree with that respected film critic, Monty Don –
“Wicked Little Letters. I watched 15 minutes and thought: this is not going well, I’m going to die in the next 30 years. “
Hmmmm. I sort of get that, switching it off after a similar time period, annoyed, frankly by the Oscar winning Olivia Colman’s part. But my step-dter suggested trying harder, so I gave it a second chance and quite enjoyed it. (I know she didn’t win it for this film, but we always call her that, as her full title.)
Oh bugger I’m booked in to see it next week. I shall try and erase this review from my mind and then report back
Watched this last night. Oh dear…it could have been so much better. The plot was just a series of episodes which seemed to abruptly end. The race element was an unnecessary complication and detracted from the whole story as we all know that London in 1940 was far less multicultural than now. It was almost as if London in the 1960s was transposed onto 1940.
The CGI was fantastic and gave a good impression of the effects of the Luftwaffe bombings, but the film was trying to do too many things and as a result did none of them well.
I am sure that looting was rife, but the Dickensian section with Kathy Burke and Stephen Graham was frankly stupid and unnecessary.
One of the least satisfactory films I’ve seen in yonks.
I’ll be giving this a big old swerve based upon everyone’s comments. My thanks one and all you’ve saved me the onerous task of tutting and swearing at the TV.
No surprise then we really liked it? Saoirse deserves an award, Paul Weller was fine as a grumpy grandad (must come naturally) and the boy Heffernan was most excellent as was the CGI
McQueen got the idea from a picture of an unknown black kid standing at Kings Cross holding a suitcase. The tube disaster really happened and a nine year old really did help rescue a lot of people.
I’ve long since give up reading reviews of movies and thanks to the Eel Market we can watch virtually whatever we want and make our own minds up.
As I said, we thought it was one of the better films we have seen this year, almost as good as Hot Frosty but not quite, so Pencil and anybody else listening – if you can catch Blitz, do so.
I haven’t seen it. It might be one of the better films I haven’t seen this year. Films I’ve seen and enjoyed over the last few months:
Rumours
Blink Twice
The Substance
A Different Man
Problemista
Sharper
Tried Hot Frosty yet? So stunningly bad it’s an absolute triumph (and stay for the outtakes).
I saw it at the cinema, where it did indeed look very fine. Saoirse had little to challenge her compared with her role in The Outrun. The plot was, as one review said, like something from a Children’s Film Foundation film from the 70s, not terrible, but not the cinematic triumph some people were seemingly willing it to be.
I watched Dunkirk on a flight home from Istanbul yesterday. Quite appropriate in the circumstances. The noise of the plane I was in was drowned out by the constant noise of the film. I was looking out over grey stretches of eastern Europe as the spitfires flew through the clear blue sky over the North Sea. And I was (still am) suffering with a cold that had blocked my nose, and given me with a unstoppable rocky throat that constantly left me spluttering – I felt I could sympathise with the multiple characters breathlessly struggling to get out of ships, boats and planes sinking in the sea. Oh, and there was a small child at the back of our plane screaming hysterically the whole duration of the flight.
Like what I find about a lot of Christopher Nolan films, it was a rollercoaster ride, covering all the bases and ticking all the boxes of what happened at Dunkirk without a moment’s pause, and not really stopping for character development.
I would credit it with giving a strong sense of the panic, fear, trauma and bravery of the event, though, despite there being hundreds of thousands on the beach, the whole story seemed to be conveyed through the experience of about 6 people – 3 led by Mark Rylance’s character in the small boat crossing to France, 1 in a spitfire and 2 experiencing everything else in the film (who must have had superhuman levels of fitness).
If Blitz appeals to people who liked Dunkirk, I guess it’s not for me.
I haven’t seen Blitz (and based on the comments above, I won’t bother) but I recently saw the 1958 Dunkirk film with Little Johnny Mills, as the much-missed Tom Hibbert used to call him in Empire magazine.
For me, it knocks Nolan’s version out of the park. Unlike his, it actually had a beach packed with many thousands of desperate men, rather than a few lines of troops surrounded by open space. It also did a better job at conveying the chaos and fear of waiting to be rescued, and of the massive organisation involved in drawing together the armada of little boats. Instead of Mark Rylance doing his Quiet, Diffident Man routine in a weirdly empty sea, it had a mass of boats being bombed, swamped, etc.
No, it couldn’t compete in terms of cinematography and sound, and it didn’t have Hans Zimmer’s ticking-clock soundtrack, but as a portrayal of the event, it was much better.
Listen not to those weirdos above (some of them like Prog or Folk or Jazz so what do they know?) – Blitz is more than decent.
I may be wrong, but I rather think it was Noel Coward who called him little Johnny Mills first. He also called Peter O’Toole Florence of Arabia.
Dear, dear Johnny
Wasn’t that referring to J. Gielgud?
Out of that gang of post-war Brit male actors, I think John Mills was the only one who was completely straight.
Well spotted!
Well spotted!
I thought the Dunkirk scenes in Atonement beat anything else I have watched.
Filmed in Redcar, a friend was the ukulele playing soldier.
I went to the premier of this a couple of months ago. Some truly beautiful scenes and memorable imagery, but ultimately hard to escape that feeling that it’s essentially a very glossy episode of Call The Midwife, and therefore a bit disappointing from a director of this calibre. I did quite enjoy Paul Weller pottering around the place though.
Oh, and I like Dunkirk – great movie.
What I want to know is, when the bombers arrive, does Paul go down in the tube station at midnight?
Oh, I say…well done!
An absolute blast
He should definitely avoid Wardour Street as well.
He was certainly somewhere in the city, waiting for the walls to come tumbling down
Going Underground was the safest option.
Only after stocking up at his favourite shop
If he could find it, being in a Strange Town
And assuming his ever changing moods allowed him
to stick with one particular retail outlet
With all the rationing you can be sure he wasn’t eatin’ trifles.
Hoorah! Spitfire roundel t-shirts in the air!
Give that man a Michelin Star
I wonder if a problem is that McQueen wrote the screenplay as well as direct, when previously he worked with others?
I believe he wrote his own dialogue in The Great Escape.
He was good with that baseball too.
He also won some sort of prize for his skillful handling of that motorbike near the end of the movie
It’s just a shame they had to veto the loveable dawg and orangutang that he wanted scenes with.
I’ve just spent two hours of my life watching this.
Was going to stop when Iggy Pop started todos singalong around
The old Johanna.
Couple of beautifully art directed scenes aside, what followed was
so bad, I wish I had
Saw it last night and agree with pretty much everyone! On one level very enjoyable and of course beautifully staged and filmed. Weller didn’t disgrace himself and the young lad in the main role outstanding. But it all felt a bit unbelievable (even though it was based on real events) and too glossy. The cynic in me felt the story was like a combination of Oliver, The Railway Children and Lassie Come Home.