MVFF47 - RSVP Guide

In Oscar® winner Steve McQueen's brilliant drama, a young boy sent to the country to wait out the WWII Blitz runs away, determined to make it back home to London.

With a gripping visual prelude, Oscar®-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, MVFF36) brilliantly captures the on-the-ground drama of WW2 London during the Blitz. As the bombardments escalate, young mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn, MVFF38; Lady Bird, MVFF40 ) makes the painful decision to evacuate her nine-year-old son George (Elliott Heffernan making an indelible screen debut) to the English countryside for safety. Only the lad will have none of that, jumping off the train to find his way back home and reunite with his mum and beloved piano-playing granddad Gerald (musician Paul Weller). In an adventure increasingly fraught and filled with danger, he navigates the war-torn streets and Underground tunnels of London—complete with characters reminiscent of Dickens. Rita, meanwhile, frantically searches for her wayward child. With an impeccable sense of time, place and humanity, McQueen turns his attention to the perils everyday British civilians faced in the chaos and violence of the War with stunning, unforgettable results.