Film poignant reminder of how far goodness can extend
The image of children boarding trains during World War II is typically a traumatic one. But in “One Life,” directed by James Hawes, it is a wildly, blindly hopeful image as children board trains in Prague, bound for England, escaping dire conditions in refugee camps and the encroaching Nazi occupation.
“One Life” is the story of Sir Nicholas “Nicky” Winton, a British stockbroker and humanitarian who, in 1939, helped to arrange the escape of 669 children from Czechoslovakia. Written by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, the film is based on the book “If It’s Not Impossible ... The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton” by Winton’s daughter, Barbara Winton. The film marks the feature directorial debut of Hawes, who directed the first season of the Apple TV+ spy series “Slow Horses.”
“One Life” weaves together two periods in Winton’s life, 50 years apart. Anthony Hopkins plays Winton in 1987, enjoying a life of peaceful retirement with his wife, Grete (Lena Olin). At the behest of Grete, while cleaning out his office, he uncovers his old scrapbook containing the records and remnants of his prewar endeavors helping refugee children. His efforts have gone unrecognized in the years since, the children scattered to foster families across Britain, but he remains haunted by their faces, snapped in photographs that he pores over with a magnifying glass.
Johnny Flynn plays Winton five decades earlier, a stern and quiet young man, the son of German Jewish immigrants who converted to Christianity and changed their last name in order to assimilate in England. Concerned with reports from occupied Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, he takes a leave from his banking job and meets a friend in Prague to assist with the refugee efforts. He immediately becomes taken with the cause of evacuating as many children as he can to England.
The comparison to “Schindler’s List” is apt — Winton was colloquially known as “the British Schindler” — and the film will feel familiar, if not formulaic, because we have seen films like this about World War II and the Holocaust. Hawes utilizes that iconography and those story elements without exploiting or sensationalizing the material; the film is emotionally restrained in a way that is almost frustrating but ultimately reflects the character of Winton’s quiet, self-effacing personality.
As he puzzles over what to do with his scrapbook, it’s the other people in his life, including his old friend Martin Blake (Jonathan Pryce), Elizabeth “Betty” Maxwell (Marthe Keller) — a Holocaust researcher and the wife of infamous media magnate Robert Maxwell — who emphasize what an important humanitarian achievement Winton spearheaded. It’s not until Winton appears on a surprising episode of the British chat show “That’s Life” that he’s able to comprehend the impact of his efforts, and the emotion begins to seep through.
There is an unshowy but profound beauty to Hawes’ work — the prewar timeline is the kind of sturdy World War II-era filmmaking that we have come to expect, rendered with a comforting authenticity. As the audience, we do crave a bit more naked emotion or even personal motivation from Nicky. But Hawes steers away from psychological inquiries. He seems less interested in why Winton did it and more that he simply did, those values of decency and kindness instilled in him by his mother (Helena Bonham Carter).
“One Life” is a slow burn, but when it cracks open, it is a deeply moving portrait of true human goodness.
MPA rating: PG (for thematic material, smoking and some language) Running time: 1:54
Where to watch: In theaters