Steve McQueen’s sensational new film might be set in London as it was seven decades after Charles Dickens’ death, but the city on screen has seldom felt deeper in the great novelist’s debt.
Blitz, which opened the 68th London Film Festival this evening, presents a teeming snapshot of the city at a pivotal point in time. Its Oliver Twist is George Ashby (Elliott Heffernan), a nine-year-old evacuee, whose mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) tearfully sends him off from Paddington Station with a cardboard tag around his neck.
The year is 1940, and with the Luftwaffe raining bombs on the industrialised East End by night, its cosy brick-built terraces are no longer safe. But for George, the countryside also holds little appeal, largely because Rita won’t be there. So an hour into the trip, he hops off the train and vows to make his way back.