This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labour of the actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn't exist.
We are in particularly dark times, you need only switch on the TV to see wars, atrocities, murders, and basic human rights stripped away, and it can get a little much. It's not surprising then that when a film comes along that offers a true story of human decency it'll be one that shakes you to your core.
One Life looks at two stages in the life of Nicholas “Nicky” Winton, a British stockbroker who, on the eve of the Second World War, joined a group of people in then-Czechoslovakia dedicated to helping the Jews. What Nicky did was to sort out the transport, and fostering of almost seven hundred children to the UK via trains. Some fifty years later Nicky is haunted by the failure to export the final train, just as his story is picked up and made worldwide news.
The film marks the feature debut of director James Hawes, who has previously been known for directing television — and it is to be said the filmmaking is a little TV movie. There's very little in the way the story is presented that offers a cinematic spectacle, which is strange given that the two timeframes of 1939 and 1987 offer plenty of fertile ground to explore dynamic juxtaposition.
Similarly, the writing is at times a little pedestrian. The choice to change events so that instead of Winton's wife discovering the scrapbook and being the one who gave it to Elisabeth Maxwell, it's Nicky, as this undoes some of his more real-world selflessness. The reality is that Winton told no one, yet the film has him searching for some sort of acknowledgement.
It's no surprise to say that the bulk of the film's merits rests on the acting, with Anthony Hopkins a perfect casting as the later-in-life Winton. Hopkins need only shrug his shoulders and garner a wealth of good will and the film rests on how he shoulders decades of guilt and longing for answers. Both he and Johnny Flynn as the younger version of Nicky carry a “regular man energy” that makes you believe this wide-eyed kid would try his best to do what's right.
The film's desire to perhaps play to an older audience, the silver pound, means that some of the more harrowing aspects of the story are left to the imagination. The final train, the ninth, is shown to be boarded by Nazis as war has broken out, but we don't see the devastation left by it. It's unfortunate given the time we are in and the sort of revisionism we face with denial, showing that children were taken away when they were close to safe passage is vital.
The film also doesn't linger on wider implications — The UK Government refusing to accept the Czech children are in danger, and that Britain and other allies gave land to Germany. Instead, the film opts to be a little safer, cutting back to a mournful Hopkins whenever something too upsetting looks to be happening.
As it stands, One Life is a fairly unremarkable film about a truly remarkable man. Carried shoulder high by Hopkins' restrained performance. By the end, the film reminds us of something Mr Spielberg told us way back in 1993 — he who saves one life saves the world entire.
One Life was shown as part of this year's BFI London Film Festival.
