Blitz is what you get when you combine Oscar–winning writer/director Steve McQueen ( Shame, 12 Years A Slave ), the works of Charles Dickens, and the third act of Atonement. And while each of these parts may sound promising by themselves, the final combination proves frustratingly uneven.

Premiering at the London Film Festival, Steve McQueen's sprawling drama tries to shine new light on what happened, but has "many of the clichés of a traditional period piece".

Blitz, his latest, is a sentimental journey through London in 1940, following a boy named George (Elliott Heffernan) as he runs away from the train transporting him and other children evacuated to the countryside and heads back to the ravaged city to ...