Anthony Hopkins as Nicholas Winton in One Life, courtesy Bleecker Street
In the days leading up to World War II, Germany was given a piece of Czechoslovakia in an attempt to appease Hitler’s world-conquering ambitions, causing thousands of refugees—most of them Jewish, huge portions of them children—to flee to then-unoccupied Prague. Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker, visited Prague and was heartbroken at the sight of all of these terrified children. So he hatched a plan, known as Kindertransport, to score British passports for as many children as possible and load them onto trains bound for the UK. Winton and his team fought day and night to save as many children as they could, up until the very moment that Hitler invaded Poland and the trains were shut down. His efforts saved hundreds of lives.
In One Life, director James Hawes introduces us to Winton nearly half a century later, where the elderly “Nicky” is played as a warm-hearted grump by Sir Anthony Hopkins. Like many who lived through the Great Depression and the War, Winton holds on to everything, and his house overfloweth. He has a grandchild on the way, and as his wife Grete (Lena Olin) heads out of town for the baby’s impending arrival, she gently pleads with Nicky to clear some of the clutter out of the house to make room for grandbaby play areas and family holiday get-togethers. Nicky sets about his task, but the things he finds in his study awaken long dormant memories of his time during the War.
Flashing back to 1930s, we witness young Nicky (now played by Johnny Flynn, of the BBC/Netflix series Lovesick) in his life in Britain, his visit to Prague, and how he and an overworked team of humanitarians based in Prague concoct the plan for Kindertransport. Flynn threads the needle in portraying Nicky as both a stereotypical stiff-upper-lip, upper-crust Brit and also someone with a warm enough heart to convince parents to leave their children in his care, and to trust him with their lives. Quickly, the team runs into bureaucratic resistance from the British government: before the government will issue a passport, each child must have a family in the UK willing to adopt them, and ₤50 to cover their eventual return trip. Nicky enlists his mother (Helena Bonham Carter) to work that angle, then ultimately heads back home himself, moving mountains to place as many children as possible.
These flashback scenes are the parts of One Life where the drama is the most heightened, as obstacle after obstacle gets in Nicky’s way and he finds ways to surmount them through his empathy and determination. As thrilling as this chunk of the film is, it’s also intercut with flash forwards to the later timeline, where we see a lot of Hopkins as the older Nicky puttering around his house, finding things that awaken old memories, and staring pensively off into the distance. None of that is poorly done, but for a while you start to think that the filmmakers are wasting Hopkins’ ample talents by giving him very little to do.
But then, thankfully, things take a turn. The 1930s timeline covers all the way up to the last train and the start of the War, then the focus shifts entirely back to the 1980s. Nicky has in his possession a scrapbook that contains the records he kept from Kindertransport, including photographs of the children used to find them foster families and rosters of the children transported out on each train. Nicky has never sought glory or credit for his role—in the ensuing insanity of the war, the story of Kindertransport has been long forgotten, and on the rare occasion when he’s forced to talk about it, he deflects all credit onto everyone else on his team. What’s important to Nicky, though, is that the history be preserved, and as we see him trying to find somebody worthy of safeguarding this history in the form of his scrapbook, we see Hopkins finally tackling material worthy of his stature and talents. His Nicky is humble, passionate, unwilling to compromise, and reluctantly appreciative as his good deeds finally earn the attention they deserve. It’s truly a powerhouse performance that gets wrapped up in a perfect, powerful, heartwarming, tear-inducing, life-affirming bow. | Jason Green
One Life screens as part of the St. Louis Jewish Film Festival on Sunday, March 30, at 7:00pm at B&B Theatres Creve Coeur West Olive 10 (12657 Olive Blvd.). Tickets are $16, or $5 with a full festival pass. To purchase tickets or to check out the full festival lineup, visit jccstl.com. For an another take on One Life, read George Napper’s review of the film from its theatrical release.
