ONE LIFE IS A BIOPIC WITH TWO HIGH POINTS
Nicholas Winton (played by Johnny Flynn) is the person who organized the rescue of 669 Jewish children from Prague before the Nazis took full control of Czechoslovakia in 1939. One Life, directed by James Hawes, begins in 1987, when Winton (played by Anthony Hopkins) is 78 and seems to be leading an inconsequential life in a glorious home in rural England. The scene then shifts back and forth between the two time periods as details unfold. The film is based on the book by his daughter, Barbara, If It’s Not Impossible . . . : The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton (2014).
In 1938, Germany is awarded the Sudetenland (German-speaking) part of Czechoslovakia at the Munich Conference. As refugees pour out of Sudetenland to Prague, Winton realizes something must be done before the Nazi army takes over the rest of the country and the Jewish population is rounded up. He flies to Prague and discovers chaos from the refugee flow. He then focuses on saving the Jewish children, which means that he must obtain approval from the local rabbi, take photos of several hundred children, obtain British sponsors, surmount immigration red tape to obtain visas for each child, find a group of facilitators to get them onto trains headed for England, and of course find funding for the project. One Life follows his quest, including the effort of his mother Babette (Helena Bonham Carter) to obtain the visas, up to the day in 1939 when children board the last train, which Nazis stop before departure. Much of the film focuses on the arduous work of the refugee workers, Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp) and Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai).
An inspiring moment occurs when the rabbi asks Winton why he wants to organize the Kindertransport. Winton points out that he is of German Jewish ancestry, though baptized in the Church of England and with a name change (from Wertheim) to blend into English life. He responds that he found England to be a land of decency and seeks to follow that pathway.
Action in 1987 involves Winton, a retiree, looking over his office collection of documents. He finds a scrapbook, which documents his project. He believes that he should share the information and find a new home in a library or museum. He spreads the word about what he has and soon is contacted by several interested persons. One is Elizabeth Maxwell (Marthe Keller), a Holocaust researcher whose husband is a prominent figure in the media. In 1988, he appears on two television programs. In the first, he is recognized while seated next to one of the survivors of his project. In the second, the BBC consumer affairs TV show That’s Life, he is stunned when the entire audience stands up behind him because they are some of those he saved from the Holocaust. Later, Queen Elizabeth knights him, and his life becomes consequential as he hosts parties for some of those he saved along with their family members.
One puzzle in the film is what Winton did between 1939 and 1987. The answer is that he conducted his Kindertransport on leave from a job as stockbroker, returned to his work while Britain coped with World War II bombing, eventually retired, and died in 2015 at the age of 106. His humility throughout the two time periods answers the question why his extraordinary feat was unrecognized for nearly 40 years. Left out of the film is the fact that there were other Kindertransports from other cities, accounting for at least 100,000 persons in the period from 1938 to 1940.
The Political Film Society has nominated One Life as best film exposé and best film on human rights of 2024. MH