My “want to feel old?” moment of the week involves watching Saoirse Ronan as a mother of a ten-year-old. Ms. Ronan is currently 30, so this is a perfectly reasonable role for her, but that doesn’t make me feel any younger. Saoirse Ronan is a precocious 12-year-old, not a mother of a precocious 12-year-old. That’s just wrong.
London, 1940. Hitler has begun his relentless bombing. The planes come every night to destroy the city. Every.single.night. Londoners haven’t quite formulated a response yet. The subways -the best place to hide from the Luftwaffe- aren’t open 24/7. The best the city can imagine is evacuation. During WWII, over 1.25 million Londoners were sent out of the city. Over half of those were children. This is both very and hardly surprising. London is the heart of England in many ways, so, yeah, Brits just can’t abandon it completely, but they sure can send all non-war essential personnel to the countryside while the war is going on.
One such child is a willful and stubborn boy called George (Elliott Heffernan). Rita (Ronan) is George’s mom, and she is the focal point for the adults in the film, but this story is about George. George has mixed parentage which would only matter if the UK were racist. Uh oh. It matters. Like many children, George gets sent away. Like many children, George doesn’t want to be sent away. Unlike many children, George did something about it, hopping off his Hogwarts Express and jumping a train back to the big city.
Oh, if it only were that easy.
Getting back to Stepney, a subsection of London north of the Tower Bridge, will require a knowledge of London George doesn’t have and maybe some help from people who don’t want to help. The fact that the war-torn city is falling apart doesn’t help, nor
do the post-Dickens theft crowd George finds almost instantly upon re-entering the city.
Meanwhile, the producers and her agent decided Saoirse Ronan should be more than just a worried mom, so the film gave her a Rosie-the-Riveter-like job and radio solo. Why is Rita requested to sing for the wireless at her munitions plant? Well, why not? I mean, it’s not like it didn’t happen – only that it PROBABLY didn’t happen. She has a lovely voice, so why are you complaining? Gee, I dunno? Cuz this is a long film and said interval isn’t even remotely plot relevant.
We can see the overarching story from the time George first jumps train: The Blitz is going to end exactly and only when George and Rita meet up again. No sooner and no later. That’s a good plot. Can’t complain about it. It’s war and a mother has lost her child; we want to get them back together, regardless of cost, don’t we? Let’s hope they both survive to reunite.
There once was a kid on a train
Dispatched to escape the Luftwaffe rain
He doesn’t do exiles
Despite the projectiles
You’re just gonna have to banish him again
Rated PG-13, 120 Minutes
Director: Steve McQueen
Writer: Steve McQueen
Genre: Some who wander …
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Children of The Blitz
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Mothers
