New to UK video-on-demand platforms this week is the British biographical drama, One Life. Directed by James Hawes and based on Barbara Winton’s book, If It’s Not Impossible…The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, the movie stars Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn, Lena Olin, Romola Garai, Alex Sharp, Samantha Spiro, and Helena Bonham Carter, and tells the real-life story of British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton and his efforts to rescue refugee children ahead of the outbreak of World War II.
In the movie, the year is 1988 and former stock broker Nicholas Winton is in the process of clearing up his office at the request of his wife. While sorting through papers he comes documents from his work for the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (BCRC), which leads him to reminisce about the past.
The story then flashes back to 1938, with a much younger Winton in Prague. Here he meets multiple families from Germany and Austria, who have fled their homes due to the rise of Nazism in their respective countries.
Each of these families are living in terrible conditions and are in constant fear. They are aware it won’t be long before the Nazis expand into Czechoslovakia, putting their lives and the lives of thousands of children at risk.
Realising the clock is ticking before the Nazis arrive in Prague, Nicholas hatches a plan to move the children to the UK where they will be placed with foster families until such time as they can return home. However, in order to do such a thing he needs to jump through various legal hoops and British bureaucracy first, all while the threat of a second World War looms in the background.
Even before sitting down to watch One Life, there’s a good chance you will be familiar with the story of Sir Nicholas Winton. In 1988, the BBC television programme, That’s Life!, aired a segment dedicated to Winton and revealed how he helped to save 669 children, who were predominantly Jewish, from the horrors of the holocaust.
That edition of That’s Life! was a particularly memorable one, as it featured a number of the children (as adults) surprising Winton on the programme. If you never saw the episode, I won’t spoil the details, I’ll simply say it was a tear-jerker of a reunion.
In more recent years, footage of that same episode has appeared on YouTube and social media and has gone viral. It regularly does the rounds on Facebook, Instagram, and the like, accompanied by some onscreen text to put the footage in context, so you may have seen a few clips even if you didn’t catch the original broadcast.
But whether you’re familiar with Winton’s story or not, you should certainly take a look at One Life. This is a beautiful movie, which tells an inspiring tale, and is a film which is led by a superb cast.
Anthony Hopkins takes on the role of the older Nicholas Winton in the movie, playing the historical figure in his 70s. He shares the part with Johnny Flynn, who portrays Winton during his younger years, and the two are perfectly cast.
Together the pair paint a fascinating portrait of the man at the centre of this picture. Despite Winton’s historical significance, he is an unassuming person who seeks no praise for his good deeds, and both Hopkins and Flynn capture him marvellously.
The actors share no screen time together, but their separate turns as Winton sync up rather well. In the 1930s Flynn’s version of Winton is determined, in the 1980s Hopkins’ version is contemplative, and when viewed together on screen it becomes clear they are portraying two sides of the same coin.
In terms of the rest of the cast, Romola Garai and Alex Sharp are good as fellow humanitarians Doreen Warriner and Trevor Chadwick respectively; Lena Olin has a nice supporting role as Nicholas’ wife, Grete; and Samantha Spiro puts in a solid turn as broadcaster and That’s Life! presenter, Esther Rantzen. And then there’s the ever-dependable Helena Bonham Carter who takes on the part of Nicholas’ mother, Babi, who helps her son with his rescue mission.
Outside of the cast, One Life boasts strong direction from James Hawes, who manages to blend together the two different time periods into one cohesive piece, and a compelling narrative from screenplay writers Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake. This is one of those movies which simply grabs you from the beginning and you find yourself hooked early on.
The deeper you get into One Life, the more you want to see how everything transpires. Once again, even if you know the details of this story you won’t want to cut the journey short because it is so carefully handled.
And remaining on this point, even if you have seen footage of the That’s Life! episode online, seeing the scenes recreated for the film remain impactful. Tears of joy and happiness will flow, as the deeds of a good soul are revealed to the world.
One Life is an excellent movie, which really captures the thrust of heroism. It shines a light on an important story from the past, and unspools its narrative with care and attention to detail.
Perhaps most important of all, One Life acts as a timely reminder we all need to start looking out for each other. As the title suggests, we have one life, and as we continue to navigate this very turbulent world, we need to make the most of it, for ourselves and for others.
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