Saoirse Ronan stars in solid WWII drama with an ‘Oliver Twist’ vibe

There is an undeniably old-fashioned quality to Steve McQueen’s World War II drama “Blitz” on AppleTV+ — a rather unexpected one for the director of “12 Years A Slave” and “Shame.”

“Of course!” you might think — the film is about the 1940s. Yes, but it spiritually whisks us back much further than the Nazis’ month of bomb attacks on the United Kingdom. McQueen’s movie is practically Dickensian. 

“Food, glorious food!” stuff. “You’ve got to pick a pocket or two!”

“Blitz,” loosely gripping, doesn’t tap into our collective idea of what a war film is so much as it does the youthful, perilous journeys through the 19th century Britain of “Oliver Twist” and “David Copperfield.” 

However, where Charles Dickens tended to home in on class structures, McQueen tosses race into his more contemporary mix. Sometimes with effectiveness, sometimes with a mallet.

The writer-director’s main character, George (Elliott Heffernan making a touching debut), is a biracial boy from the East End, who dangerously treks solo from the English countryside all the way to London to reunite with his mother, Rita (Saoirse Ronan), a wartime factory worker who loves to sing.

Like many parents, she’s made the difficult choice to send off her son to the safety of towns far away from the coasts, which were being hit hard day and night by the German Luftwaffe. But lonely and bullied everywhere he goes, George jumps off the train and riskily attempts to return to the one person he can trust.

Because of his skin color, most grown-ups aren’t jumping at the chance to help him.

This is where the tale’s unabashed literary sensibilities kick in. On his sobering adventure, George encounters oversize characters, both genuinely good and purely evil.

On the villain pile is a Fagin-like ne’er-do-well and his muddy cronies, who kidnap the young man and force him to sneak through small entryways and steal valuables. At a destroyed music hall, the vile adults sip leftover Champagne and play with the corpses like they were dolls.

But George is also taken in by kindly Ife (Benjamin Clementine), a mistreated Nigerian government worker, who teaches him to have some pride in his heritage. 

When Rita gets wind that George is missing, she desperately tries to find him with the help of a soldier named Jack (Harris Dickinson). He likes and respects the single mum, while other locals still look down on her for having a child out of wedlock with a black man.

Dickinson’s stoic, wide-eyed demeanor is befitting a fighter who’s seen a great deal of tragedy. It’s a small part, though. The talented Brit is better showcased in “Triangle of Sadness” and the upcoming “Babygirl” with Nicole Kidman.

McQueen’s script at times reeks of obviousness, even as it nurtures understated and heartfelt performances from Ronan and Heffernan. We always know where the film is going, and it dutifully goes there. Visually, though, the work’s a stunner. 

As the city is pounded by explosives, little George tries to outrun them. Buildings shatter and fires burn around him, and he sprints toward the tube station. Because, as a child whose innocence has been lost — not only to war but to society’s cruelty — he instinctively knows that’s where he stands his best shot.

Those sequences can be harrowing, like the chase, or simple reminders of the life-altering horrors of the Blitz, such as everyday subway platforms becoming shelters.   

“Blitz” is a well-made, attention-holding movie with big ideas despite its basic frame. Yet it still underwhelms a tad. 

Perhaps with a filmmaker as accomplished as McQueen, my great expectations were a little too great.