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Movie Review: Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn find poignant synergy in real-life war tale ‘One Life’

This image released by Bleecker Street shows Anthony Hopkins in a scene from “One Life.” (Bleecker Street via AP)

This image released by Bleecker Street shows Anthony Hopkins in a scene from “One Life.” (Peter Mountain/Bleecker Street via AP)

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By the time Nicholas Winton died in 2015 at the ripe age of 106, the former London stockbroker and self-proclaimed “ordinary man” had been widely recognized for his extraordinary deeds — rescuing 669 Jewish children from the Nazis, saving them from certain death.

But for most of his life, Winton’s rescue of those children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, bringing them to safety in Britain, was unknown to the public. His story was revealed dramatically on the BBC show “That’s Life!” in 1988, which introduced him, in an emotional surprise, to some of the very people he’d saved. Tears were shed and a fuss was made over this unfussy man. He was dubbed the “British Schindler,” and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003.

Even if you didn’t know Anthony Hopkins was starring in “One Life,” the straightforward yet still moving new drama based on Winton’s tale, you’d be forgiven for assuming it the minute you learned Winton was a modest and quiet elderly man, keeping much to himself. Hopkins can play such a character in his sleep.

What he’s truly great at, though, is that moment when he finally lets the wall around him crumble and shows what he’s been feeling all along. Yes, this happens in “One Life,” and yes, you’ll likely be wiping tears along with him. The emotional payoff takes a while to arrive, but once it does in the last act of this film, you’ll have a hard time forgetting Hopkins’ face.

FILE - Outgoing Czech President Milos Zeman listens to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic during a press conference after talks at the Serbia Palace in Belgrade, Serbia, on Jan. 30, 2023. Former Czech President Milos Zeman was released from hospital on Wednesday, april 3, 2024 following surgery for a blood clot in his leg. Miloslav Ludvik, director of Motol University Hospital in Prague said Zeman, 79, will now recuperate at home. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)

Holocaust-themed movies are crucial but notoriously tricky ventures. At Sunday’s Oscars, Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” was honored for a hugely inventive approach , illustrating the banality of Nazi evil in its chilling portrayal of an Auschwitz commandant’s family life right outside the camp wall. “One Life,” directed with efficiency by James Hawes, takes a much more traditional approach, telling its story in flashback with dialogue that sometimes borders on the overly expository, but with a lovely cast and a story that begs to be told.

Hopkins is the key draw, but Johnny Flynn, the talented actor-musician, has the difficult task of channeling Hopkins as a younger man (the filmmakers chose to shoot the Hopkins scenes first, so that Flynn could then build the connective tissue between the two, something he does admirably.) And it’s a lot more than 50 years that separate the two versions of Winton. It’s the war itself. The events with younger Winton took place in 1939, as the Nazis were marching across Europe but two years before they began implementing their so-called Final Solution, the mass murder of European Jews. The elder Winton knew exactly what became of all those children he couldn’t bring to safety, and you can see it in his eyes here.

We first meet the elder Winton at home in Maidenhead, a town in southeast England. It’s 1987, and he’s staring at faded photos of children from the war. He spends his days involved in local charity work. He can’t seem to get rid of all the clutter in his study, despite the pleadings of his wife, Grete (Lena Olin), who tells him: “You have to let go, for your own sake.” He’s still trying to figure out what to do with a frayed leather briefcase, which contains a precious scrapbook full of war memories.

We flash back to 1939 London, when 29-year-old Nicky, as he’s known, who is of Jewish descent but has been raised as a Christian, resolves to leave the comfortable home he lives in with his mother, Babi (Helena Bonham Carter), to travel to Prague. He aims to help with the growing crisis caused by the influx of refugees from the Sudetenland region just annexed by Germany; he and others fear (correctly) that the Nazis will soon invade and send the Jewish refugees to camps.

In Prague, he finds desperate families and starving children, like a 12-year-old girl caring for an infant who has lost its parents. “We have to move the children,” he tells his colleagues. They say the task is too daunting. He persists, convincing a local rabbi to give him lists of children to begin the process (“I’m putting their lives in your hands,” the rabbi tells him.) Upon his return to London, aided by his spirited mother, he embarks on a furious race against time and government bureaucracy to obtain visas for the children and raise awareness in the media. “The process takes time,” an official says. “We don’t have time,” he replies.

Somehow, he manages to get the transports going, meeting the trains in London, where children are matched with foster families. (The most moving scenes in the film, until the emotional crescendo at the end, are departure scenes in Prague, with children saying goodbye to parents who must surely sense they’ll never see them again).

As the film toggles between 1939 and 1987-88, we learn that Winton managed to get eight trains of children out but not a ninth, with 250 children who were turned back once the Nazis invaded, a loss he keeps buried inside. That is, until he he meets a Holocaust researcher who happens to be married to news magnate Robert Maxwell.

That meeting ultimately leads to the climax in the television studio, faithfully recreated by Hawes, who actually once worked on that very BBC show. The scene is doubly poignant given the knowledge that some of the background actors in the studio that day were actual family members of those Winton saved. “There was not a dry eye on the set floor,” the director has said.

That’s not difficult to believe.

“One Life,” a Bleecker Street release, has been rated PG by the Motion Picture Association “for thematic material, smoking and some language.” Running time: 110 minutes. Three stars out of four.

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One Life Reviews

Anthony Hopkins plays Nicholas Winton, an Englishman who saved hundreds of Jewish children from dying in concentration camps in 1939 and, despite this, does not see himself as someone particularly deserving. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 19, 2024

It’s nice when Hollywood occasionally makes a movie about an ordinary but good person and that’s the case with One Life.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 16, 2024

It is a profound tribute to the belief that heroism lies within us all, resonating as a beacon of hope and action in today's times.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 11, 2024

Winton’s wartime heroism and its emotional toll on him decades later, told in two time frames. His is an extraordinary story, with a strong payoff and stellar performances by two-time Oscar winner Hopkins and a star-studded supporting cast.

Full Review | Apr 4, 2024

It's a story worth telling and re-telling — and also one worthy of a more comprehensive treatment than One Life.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 3, 2024

One Life works very well -- an impeccable period reconstruction, an emotional classic narrative, and a vindicating message illuminating the altruism of a man who had everything and chose to risk it all to help others. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Mar 27, 2024

Sir Anthony Hopkins, in a massively nuanced performance, allows audiences inside Nicky's head and world rewinding history to the moment his life changed forever

Full Review | Mar 25, 2024

James Hawes directs the film within the margins of a BBC 'quality' production. Nothing against that, but when he defies them, the film grows, and, yes, there you can liken it to Spielberg's 'Schindler's List'. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 25, 2024

What director James Hawes tells is very transcendent, but he does it academically with a tendency towards the conventional... What is difficult to ignore is the presence of the now-elderly Anthony Hopkins. [Full review in Spanish]

If “One Life” does anything well, it is stressing the importance of bureaucrats behaving like human beings, not as indifferent agentic state actors who do not feel personal responsibility when acting on behalf of a grander authority

Full Review | Mar 24, 2024

Anthony Hopkins continues to bless us with one amazing performance after another.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 24, 2024

One Life is n example of historical storytelling that doesn’t need artificial drama to get its points across—the truth is dramatic and moving enough. Hopkins' and Flynn’s performances beautifully blend to paint a nicely crafted portrait.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 23, 2024

Nicholas Winton is an example of what a monumental humanitarian effort can do, as quoted in the film’s post scripts, “If you save one life, you save the world.” Hopkins’ and Flynn’s passionate performances more than illuminate that message.

Full Review | Mar 23, 2024

Despite the fact that this film's narrative is like a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth between 1988 and 50 years earlier, it works well. All the flashbacks provide context to the rescue operation, and to the continuing legacy of that operation.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 22, 2024

Among the recent spate of WWII dramas about ordinary people who did extraordinary things...James Hawes’s One Life, a British film, is one of the best.

Full Review | Mar 22, 2024

It shows the legacy of heroes who champion life’s dignity in a world that often cheapens it.

Full Review | Mar 21, 2024

A true tearjerker presented with clarity and sincerity.

Full Review | Mar 20, 2024

An excellent Anthony Hopkins in the role of a person who decides to risk his safety to save lives during World War II. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 20, 2024

Volker Bertelmann's tender score adds just the right touch to this excellent film that should not be missed.

Full Review | Mar 19, 2024

There will be no dry eye, any time, in any theater, where "One Life" is shown. One life that saved 669 lives, which has thus far resulted in approximately 6,000 descendants.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 19, 2024

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‘One Life’ Review: Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn Spotlight the Selfless Deeds of ‘the British Schindler’

A stirring biopic covers two eras in the long life of humble British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton, who helped organize transports saving some 669 Czech and Slovak children in 1939.

By Alissa Simon

Alissa Simon

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In December 1938, Winton, known as Nicky, then a 29-year-old London stockbroker, visits Prague. Seeing the appalling conditions in refugee camps housing those fleeing from Austria, Germany and the Sudetenland, he launches an operation to rescue vulnerable children under the auspices of the British Committee for Refugees in Czechoslovakia. Many of the youngsters are Jews in imminent danger of deportation. Before WW2 is declared on Sept. 1, 1939, he masterminds eight successful transports, bringing 669 Czech and Slovak youngsters to foster families in Great Britain.

As the ever-modest Winton would have wanted, the film is careful to share the credit for the evacuation transports and host family placements. While he ultimately organizes and raises money from the UK, we see (albeit barely characterized) Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai), head of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia in Prague, and Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp), a former school teacher, doing dangerous work on the ground in the Czech capital.

While the tense, action-oriented 1938-39 timeline is inherently more compelling because of the race to get all the moving pieces (the trains, the visas, the host families, the £50-per-child bond, medical certificates) in place to transport the children out of Prague before the Nazis enter and the borders close, the 1988 section is slower and more contemplative. Nearing 80-years-old and urged by his wife Grete (Lena Olin) to reduce some of his store of papers, Winton, who never told his family about his role in saving so many refugees, wonders what lessons the scrapbook documenting his work might offer to a wider public.

Strangely for a script based on the book “If It’s Not Impossible” by Winton’s daughter Barbara, the portrayal of Nicky’s Danish-born wife strikes an off-key note. Rather than a much-loved support, she comes across as a critical, neatnik nag. Plus, the miscast Lena Olin, almost unrecognizable under a bad wig, looks so much younger than Hopkins that one might first assume that she’s his daughter.

Why did Winton never discuss his heroic acts prior to 1988? The film sidesteps the question, but shows that its protagonist considers himself an ordinary man whose lifelong values dictate his actions. As we see when he meets his old friend Martin (Jonathan Pryce), the man who urged him to go to Prague in the first place, they are from a generation that rarely speaks about the past, much less the traumas they have seen or endured.

This, in part, is what makes Winton’s two appearances on “That’s Life!” so emotionally stirring. The past deeds that he has so long ignored reap a harvest of feelings guaranteed to draw a tear from even the hardest of hearts.

Shooting on location in both the U.K. and Czech Republic, helmer Hawes and his collaborators create strong period looks for each timeline, giving them each their own natural rhythm. Ace editor Lucia Zucchetti moves seamlessly back and forth between them while Volker Bertelmann’s attractive piano and orchestra score is never overbearing.

Reviewed online, Sept. 10, 2023. In Toronto, BFI London film festivals. Running time: 110 MIN.

Production: (U.K.) A See-Saw Films Production. (World sales: FilmNation Entertainment, New York.) Producers: Joanna Laurie,Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Guy Heeley. Executive producers: Simon Gillis, Eva Yates, Barbara Winton, Maria Logan, Anne Sheehan, Peter Hampden.
Crew: Director: James Hawes. Screenplay: Lucinda Coxon, Nick Drake, based on the book “If It’s Not Impossible” by Barbara Winton. Camera: Zac Nicholson. Editor: Lucia Zucchetti. Music: Volker Bertelmann.
With: Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn, Lena Olin, Romola Garai, Alex Sharp, Marthe Keller, Jonathan Pryce, Helena Bonham Carter. (English, Czech, German dialogue)

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One Life review – Anthony Hopkins moves in stirring second world war drama

The two-time Oscar winner makes a convincing play for a third statuette in the powerful story of Nicholas Winton, who saved Jewish children before the war began

I t seems strange that an actor of Anthony Hopkins’ prestige and acclaim would need a comeback so late in his career but for a few years, the Oscar-winner was stuck in a cycle of thankless sequel paycheques and one-word thrillers where the “and” credit was starting to lose its lustre (Collide! Solace! Misconduct! Blackway!). Within the space of a year he was then Oscar nominated for The Two Popes and won for The Father (his first Academy attention since 1998) and while it didn’t exactly curb his predilection for B-movies completely (in 2021 he started in Zero Contact, the first film to be released by an NFT platform), it did edge him back toward substance, with a subtle yet scene-devouring turn in James Gray’s Armageddon Time and now, another knockout performance in the second world war drama One Life.

The film might, at times, feel more like a BBC TV drama (it does come from BBC Films among others) with some pedestrian film-making touches but it builds towards a last act of towering emotion, with few dry eyes at its Toronto film festival premiere. It’s a story of radical bravery, of Nicholas Winton, a stockbroker gripped by a need to do something as Europe neared the start of the second world war. He headed to Prague in 1938, despite the cautions of his well-intentioned mother, and found himself immediately horrified by the situation so many of the young refugees were in, most unlikely to survive the winter. His plan to save them was dismissed as naive by those more hardened by what they had seen and what they had found not to be possible but he returned to London determined to help and with the assistance of his equally dogged mother, he started gathering visas and finding homes.

We see his work play out via flashbacks as the elder Winton sorts through files and papers he’s long been hoarding, much to the chagrin of his wife. Played by Johnny Flynn as a youth, he’s a man driven by an unstoppable need to help and as his older self, played by Hopkins, he’s a man haunted by never helping enough. Embarrassed by the idea of demanding attention for what he had done, he learned to almost bury it, telling himself that anyone would have acted in the same way and that thinking too much about it would cause him to focus on those who were left behind.

It’s an involving back-and-forth through time but in the scenes from the late 30s, small screen director James Hawes often struggles to visually distinguish his film from so many second world war dramas that have come before, reverting to the safety of his TV roots. Flynn is a convincingly obsessive problem-solver, with help from a steely Romola Garai in Prague (someone please give her a legal procedural already) and a tenacious Helena Bonham-Carter as his mother in London, and there’s an undeniable wrench from the familiar yet poignant images of little hands waving goodbye to parents they’re never going to see again. But it’s in the scenes from the late 80s, which slowly start to take centre stage, that the film finds more original footing, exploring with nuance the realities of living with the weight of doing so much yet thinking of it as so little.

Winton’s monumental accomplishment was kept hidden for years, buried away in a leather briefcase in his home, and as he slowly tries to find a way to share the documents that detail what he did (for historical and educational purposes rather than for anything involving his ego), his life and self-perception start to shift. It’s in these latter scenes, as Winton confronts his innate goodness and realises the weight of what he’s done, that the film truly soars. Key moments take place at recordings of BBC’s That’s Life, a show his wife laughs off as tacky, but there’s something about its unashamed sentimentality that starts to have an effect, suddenly hitting us as it does Hopkins, whose display of unearthed emotion is rather shattering, a man never thinking of himself as good enough finally realising he’s better than most of us. It’s a last act that brought down the house here in Toronto and will likely do the same upon release.

One Life is screening at the Toronto film festival and will be released in the UK on 5 January with a US release to be announced