Saoirse Ronan’s World War Two drama launches London Film Festival

Actress Saoirse Ronan has said shooting her new World War Two film felt “incredibly relevant” against the backdrop of conflict around the world.

Blitz, directed by Sir Steve McQueen, was mostly filmed in early 2023, about a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to journalists ahead of its world premiere in London, Ronan said: “You’d shoot certain scenes where there’s total chaos and pandemonium, and we’re portraying characters in abject fear and horror.

“And then you’d leave set, turn on the radio, and you’d hear exactly the same thing, or put on the news and see exactly the same thing.”

She continued: “It was the first time I’d ever had the experience on a project where there wasn’t really an escape from it.

“I don’t know if it’s insensitive to say that I was grateful for it, but it gave you so much motivation to continue with the picture, because it does feel incredibly relevant.”

The film launched this year’s London Film Festival on Wednesday evening, and saw Ronan join her co-stars including Stephen Graham, Paul Weller and Benjamin Clementine on the red carpet at the Royal Festival Hall.

Blitz is one of the few contenders for next year’s film awards season not to have already been screened at an earlier festival – leaving pundits unable to rate its Oscars chances until now.

But Sir Steve wanted the film to receive its world premiere in London because it tells a uniquely British story.

“I’m a Londoner and I’ve been very fortunate to debut films at Cannes, Venice, Telluride, Toronto [film festivals],” the director said.

“But for this particular movie, for me there was no other place I wanted to debut this film other than London, and I was crossing my fingers that that could happen.”

Blitz follows a working class London family as the British capital is bombed during World War Two.

The story is told through the eyes of George, a nine-year-old mixed-race boy played by newcomer Elliott Heffernan, who is one of about a million children sent away from the big cities during the Blitz to live in the countryside for their safety.

George, however, adamantly does not want to leave his mother and grandfather in London, and jumps from the train during its journey away from the city to pursue his own adventure.

His mother, played by Ronan, is sick with worry as she waits for updates from the authorities who are trying to find him.

Several critics have given Blitz rave reviews. Awarding the film five stars, the Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey described it as “a monumental achievement in British cinema”.

The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin also awarded it five stars, saying the film “ranks among the greatest war films ever made”, while the Wrap’s William Bibbiani said it was “a great motion picture in every sense… a masterpiece”.

Blitz is “not McQueen’s finest film”, said the Evening Standard’s Nick Curtis, “but it’s streets ahead of wartime schmaltz like Darkest Hour”.

However, the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw offered just three stars and said he was hoping for “a more radical shock… or a more distinctive authorial challenge”.

Variety’s Owen Gleiberman said the film was “well-staged, well-acted, and given a creamy deluxe wartime period-piece sheen”.

“But,” he continued, “this is mostly the war diary as inspirational crowd-pleaser. It’s also an ardently traditional message movie about race and tolerance.”

The Hollywood Reporter’s Leslie Felperin suggested the story and characters could have been given “more room to breathe”, adding: “The drama too often lacks the subtlety that distinguishes [Sir Steve’s] work at its best.”

Sir Steve is best known for directing Widows, Shame and 12 Years A Slave, which won the Oscar for best picture in 2014.

Speaking on Wednesday about his stimulus for the new film, the director said he had come across a photo that intrigued him while working on his 2020 TV series Small Axe.

“I found a photograph of a small black child at a railway station, with an oversized briefcase. And I thought, who is that child? I want to see the war from his eyes.”

Actor Graham noted the film takes a slightly different perspective from many other films set in World War Two, partly because the lead character is a mixed-race child.

“As a kid, I was used to watching these wonderful black-and-white films with my nana – ‘Cor blimey, guv’na, let’s push through the war’,” Graham joked, adopting an exaggerated Cockney accent.

“We were brought up watching those films, and they were beautiful films, but I’ve never seen this vision that Steve brought to the screen, this perspective… a mixed-race child in a war film set in the Blitz.”

But when asked if he viewed the film as an opportunity to correct the way the Blitz is traditionally viewed, Sir Steve replied: “I’m not interested in correcting anything. I’m not a reactionary. I’m an artist.

“I love to work on things which mean something to me,” he continued. “What was so interesting to me about the idea of this landscape was that it was about a working class family. This was a family drama as well as a historical epic.”

Ronan’s character Rita is one of millions of women who stepped into jobs previously filled by men who had gone off to fight.

“For them to have been the core power within their home, taking Rita for example as someone who has a child to take care of, a father to provide for, and to step into the role of men when they left, I’m sure was incredibly trying for these young women, who were in their 20s and so much was being expected of them.”

Blitz will be released in cinemas on 1 November before streaming on Apple TV+ later that month.

It is one of two films Ronan stars in that could be in contention in the coming awards season.

She will campaign for best supporting actress for Blitz, and best leading actress for The Outrun, in which she plays an alcoholic returning to her family in Orkney.