One Life

I've been on a bit of a spree of Jewish themed films of late, trying to inject a bit of hope in between the inevitable darkness. Going from Shoah to Yentl and The Zone of Interest to One Life, which I think will likely bridge the horror with some lasting positivity... hopefully. I say this, as like many, I'm aware of Nicolas Winton from his appearance on That's Life! A stunning piece of television that will stick with anyone who remembers it being broadcast. I was very young though and I'm sure there's more to the story than I recall. Winton was a man who saw what the Nazis were up to, whilst many were covering their eyes and was moved to do something. That something was the Kindertransport or more accurately an extension of it. One Life is based on his true story and it doesn't shy on the details. We first meet an older Nicolas (Anthony Hopkins), doddering perhaps, slowing down a little but still motivated to help. Haunted by his past. You don't unsee the things he's seen. As he stares into a darkened window, we drift back to the 30s, where he's played by Johnny Flynn, trying to convince his mother (Helena Bonham Carter) that it's a good idea for him to travel to Czechoslovakia to help the refugees from the advancing Nazis. Flynn not only portrays Winton magnificently, he also feels perfectly in step with Hopkins. He's a bit of a chameleon. Nicolas though isn't on the surface. He's a well to do stockbroker. A desk man. Head in paperwork type. The harsh Prague winter is not what he was prepared for, but he learns quickly that without help, these displaced people have been forgotten by the system. The British government is not helping Czechoslovakians. When Nicolas is quizzed as to his motives, what skin he has in the game. His response is gripping. Heartfelt, unwavering, determined and spine tingling. The scenes of people saying goodbye at train stations, children with numbers on cardboard around their necks are intercut with the bureaucracy that Nicolas, friends and his mother navigate with steely determination as a score of thick string and piano laden melancholy fills the score. It's this drive/melancholy that defines Nicolas. The drive is his nature, the melancholy what he's left with when there's time think. It's this time that dictates older Nicolas's life. He realises there's sadly still a lesson to be learnt. This timeline isn't perhaps as fraught and terrifying, but it's what lead to that TV moment, this film and Anthony Hopkins reducing me to tears. The pace is kept up by jumping between Hopkins and Flynn in the eras of his life, where although some things have changed, the focus hasn't. It's not an easy watch, amazing as it is what they're doing, as Babi Winton (Bonham Carter) says "Nicky, you must know you can't save them all". What a world we live in. Where this happened and still the danger persists. Thank god for people like Nicolas Winton. A magnificent story brought about by the evil that people are capable of.

The story of Nicholas Winton, who saved hundreds of children from the Nazis just before the start of WW2 by organising trains from Czechoslovakia to the UK, is very much a story worth telling, especially as he was essentially a modest hero, one who didn't even think he deserved recognition, which makes his story all the more moving as it unfolds in flashback from late 70s Britain as Winton, superbly portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, remembers the events of the late 1930s.

Of course, there have been so many WW2 dramas over the years, so I felt the pre-war scenes do somewhat lack tension and a certain freshness, but good direction and succinct writing do calmly and absorbingly set the scene, explaining those earlier events well, but we also follow the way that 40 years later the heroic efforts of Winton and his colleagues were finally revealed and celebrated, ultimately making it a truly moving and revealing film. Perhaps, considering how things look today, it's also a reminder of how good really can triumph over evil and cynicism, and it's finally a superb tribute to a remarkable man.

All One Life has to do to honour its true story is tell it with care and competency and that's exactly what it does. This is a deeply affecting story of selfless people who did everything they could to save as many people as possible whilst others just ignored what was going on.

Anthony Hopkins is on terrific form here. He embodies the selflessness effortlessly and brings a heartbreaking sense of defeat, focusing on what he could've done rather than what he achieved. He's also one of the rare actors who can make you cry by bringing on the waterworks, when he cries you cry.

In the flashbacks Johnny Flynn is an extremely convincing younger version of Hopkins with that same desire to always do more. Helena Bonham Carter gets a loveable role supporting Flynn with a stern determination and refusal to take no for an answer.

James Hawes directs with a level of technical competency that's designed to go unnoticed. The production value is reminiscent of a high end BBC production, which is obviously very fitting and the pacing is really strong. Undoubtedly helped by spending the majority of the time in the flashbacks which are rife with tension.

Anthony Hopkins excels in the lead role, showing he's still magnetic well into his 80s and he's ably supported by Johnny Flynn playing him as a younger man and it's good to see Lena Olin again on the screen, playing his wife.

It's a solid drama that will appeal to the same target audience that made The Great Escaper,Operation Mincemeat,Dirty Little Letters etc popular; the older generation- and there's nothing wrong with, at least their going to the movies!

I knew about the Kindertransport but not fully; this film dutifully tells the story and it has the same level of tension that Munich: The Edge of War had ,countries being invaded as a set up to tell humane stories.

The classic TV recreation on' This Life' was well done and moving.

Turn on the news and what do you see? Man's inhumanity to man. Ukraine, Gaza etc etc. It's enough to make you lose faith in the human race - or it would be were it not for the occasional story of humanity at its best.

In Czechoslovakia in 1938-9, a small group of people (Nicholas Winton is the best known as he was the last survivor of that group) are appalled by the plight of mainly Jewish refugees, and resolve to do something. Despite opposition from governments (German, Dutch, British and American) they manage to evacuate 669 children and provide them with foster families in the UK, where many of their descendants live to this day. A further 250 children were on a train that was scheduled to leave on the day war was declared. Two of them were still alive at the war's end.

Then the story was forgotten for more than forty years, until at last Nicholas Winton was given the recognition he deserved (not the least astonishing part of the story is that Robert Maxwell did one decent thing in his life).

The film is in two parts; the younger Winton being played by Johnny Flynn, the older by Anthony Hopkins. Both give stand-out performances. Also excellent is Helena Bonham Carter as Winton's mother. The scene where she tells a bureaucrat what she thinks of him is priceless.

But the most important aspect of the film is its message. Human kindness is still a force in the world. Everyone can make a difference. No good deed, be it great or small, is ever wasted.

If only governments were run by people like Nicholas Winton.