This fantastic film, to be released Nov. 1st, is written and directed by Steve McQueen, whose previous film Occupied City about wartime Amsterdam was so affecting.
This film, set in wartime London during the Blitz, is truly Epic in scale and execution--and both Caroline and I and our friend Jon Surgal left the Directors Guild of America screening room on West 57th Street in awe last night at its immense power (Caroline and I with tears in our eyes...as you may know, Caroline is British...but did you know that her soon-to-be 99-year-old mum actually removed phosphor bombs from Golders Green rooftops as a small girl during the Blitz? I thought not).
Saoirse Ronan (Belfast) is just phenomenal as a working-class mother with a young mixed-race son, the product of a short-term liaison with a Black expat before the war. Her 9-year-old son George, winningly played by impressive first-timer Elliot Heffernan, is told by his mother, who he loves dearly, that, unfortunately, he needs to evacuate to the country along with many other British children to escape the nightly deadly assault on London by Hitler's Luftwaffe. (And here I have to say that never has the Blitz been portrayed in such a staggeringly immersive way before on screen, in my experience. Kudos to Hans Zimmer's discordant, furious, frightening score and the film's sound designer).
Young George, in a spasm of home-sickness en route to the country, bravely jumps off the transport train he's been assigned to, survives, and is forced to live by his wits in the wild, enduring all sorts of daunting adventures in his quest to wend his way back to London and reunite with his grieving mother.
UK pop legend Paul Weller (The Jam) is compelling as the son's piano-playing granddad, with a noble visage that bears more than a passing resemblance to David Warner (Morgan).
The entire cast is superb, a panoply of staunch British faces and voices that occasionally break into rousing music hall and jazz songs (there is more than an affinity here with the current Broadway UK import The Hills of California, which we also adored: http://culturecatch.com/node/4366 ).
Steve McQueen has proven since his spectacular debut with 12 Years a Slave that he is a film director of the very first rank. His technique is assured, here mixing the aerial vistas of the German bombardiers over wartime London unleashing their deadly cargo with up close and personal views of the denizens of London forced into the Underground during the air raids--and his story-telling prowess is second to none. Along the way, his heart-stopping two-hour film boldly touches on themes of racism, class warfare, and the grim Malthusian Survival of the Fittest ("Nature is red in tooth and claw"—Alfred, Lord Tennyson).
Very dark, very grim, very watchable, and very light in parts (especially in the super ballroom dancing sequences)--this film is, as they say, a FUCKING MOVIE!!
You have to see this.