Blitz takes place during the German bombing of London during World War II. Saoirse Ronan plays Rita, a single mother who puts her son George (Elliott Heffernan) on one of the trains for children out of London. George tells Rita he hates her as the train pulls away. After being bullied on the train for his mixed race, George jumps off the train and starts his long journey back to London. The movie then turns into George’s odyssey home and Rita’s search for George. Of course along the way George runs into villains, heroes, and people in between.
Heffernan is a fine child actor, though he’s not asking to do anything incredibly hard. Ronan is fine as the scared but strong single mother Rita. It is bizarre to see the former child actress playing a mother role now.
In the end it’s a rather predictable story of peril, but there are a few moments that genuinely surprised me.
I’m a little tired off World War II movies, every year there are multiple Oscar-bait movies that deal with the trauma of World War II. It feels very over-saturated, I think it times for filmmakers to move onto the Cold War or something.