One Life

If you spent a bunch of time online in the mid to late 2010s, during the heyday of Buzzfeed and Upworthy and the like, chances are you’ve heard of Nicholas Winton. Even if you don’t remember his name, you likely recall hearing about a man who saved a bunch of children during WWII getting the surprise of his life 50 years later. It’s the type of moment tailor made to go viral, as it implies a kind of quiet selflessness and sainthood that we prize: doing the right thing for its own sake, and risking your own well-being in the process. It highlights that even when the world is falling apart, there are those individuals who cannot help but move to action, calling to mind Fred Rogers’ reminder to “Look for the helpers.” There is value to telling the stories of such people, to help combat the feeling of helplessness that can dominate during impossible circumstances.

Unfortunately, such stories don’t necessarily make for good movies. Instead, you’ve gotta spruce it up a bit, find some additional angle from which to approach the proceedings, and maybe land on a way to thematically tie it all together, or comment on the modern perspective on such old events.

Thus is how One Life arrives at its framing device, giving it a way to tell the story of Winton’s remarkable deeds while also building to a recreation of that viral moment. In 1988 (where he’s portrayed by Anthony Hopkins), after being prompted by his wife Grete (Lena Olin) to clean up his office, he decides it’s time he donate the scrapbook he used to organize the information and escape of the hundreds of children he saved, and so sets out to find someone interested in this little known story. As he does so, he reflects on those events 50 long years ago. As a young man in 1938, Winton (played by Johnny Flynn) travels from England to Czechoslovakia in order to secure passage to London for as many children as he can before Hitler makes good on his predilection for breaking promises. This involves working the levers of power as best they can, including in his country’s immigration system, a task which his tireless and fiery mother Babi (Helena Bonham Carter) is more than up to taking on while he focuses on logistics on the ground. Of course, for gaining the people’s trust and preparing documents and matching children to foster families, he’s got plenty of help in his colleagues Doreen (Romola Garai), Trevor (Alex Sharp), and Martin (Ziggy Heath).

And…that’s kind of it. There’s a lot of paperwork in 1938 with a built in ticking clock, and a bunch of puttering and murmuring and conversing as older Nicky cleans and remembers. But it’s just not a particularly engaging story. There are a few dramatic moments in 1938, but nothing you haven’t seen before. It hits all the beats and lines of dialog you expect, and the performances are fine but don’t really add any flourishes to it. There’s just not much to hold on to.

The frame emphasizes many times that these are children we’re talking about here, as if that fact is somehow lost on you and seeing lingering shots of childhood innocence denied automatically makes this an Important Film. Instead, I just kept expecting “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan to start playing. There’s such a cheesy, overwrought, saccharine quality to the images chosen that it’s hard not to roll your eyes. We even meet an 11 or 12-year-old girl holding a baby, trying to tug at your heartstrings, a feeling only underlined more by finding out she found the child and doesn’t know who or where its parents are. We get it: these are dangerous times, and anyone can be “disappeared” at any moment. Laying it on so thick is completely unnecessary.

The core problem is the filmmakers know Winton’s story isn’t quite enough to fill out a feature. Hence all the filler and framing and scenes of old Winton walking about his house. It also explains why they treat the briefcase as a mystery at first, as if we don’t immediately assume it contains papers connected to his charity work. They want everything to feel more substantial, to distract you from how much it’s not.

That being said, what we do see is generally well made. Bloated, yes, but once you push through that, it’s somewhat compelling anyways. Seeing the mechanics of an operation like this is interesting, even as it fails to explain itself enough to satisfy my curiosity (why did the Germans not shut down this operation?). The skepticism of the people at first, needing to address the concerns of a community worried their children will forget their Jewish roots, the logistics of procuring trains, etc. In the later timeline, I can’t say I was particular grabbed by people rejecting Winton’s story as not “the type of thing we cover”, although I was mildly intrigued by him rejecting offers which would confine his artifact to a back room where no one will be able to learn from it.

All of this pales in comparison to the main event. I won’t spoil it in case you’re unaware of what happened, I’ll just say that of course I cried at it: I have a heart. It’s such a beautiful and touching moment, and staged absolutely wonderfully. There’s a particular great camera choice they make at the key moment which lends it even more impact than it might have had otherwise. And learning that the moment was recreated using the children of those Winton saved, and that Hopkins didn’t know until the day of filming, further deepens its power.

Ironically, this highlights an issue. If you know the story, you’re likely waiting the whole time to see how and when they’re going to replicate the viral moment. While it’s easy to set aside during the extended flashbacks, back in 1988, I was constantly wondering how they were going to get there. It feels quite drawn out, but if I’m being honest, I can’t say how much of that is my mind warping time. All of which leads me to wish they hadn’t insisted on treating that moment as a reveal, and instead used it as the framing device, as an excuse to tell us the story. Because as implied above, we don’t really need to see his process of discovery. Sure, it gives us a bit of context for who he is now. But not much, and I don’t think the movie really cares too deeply about that: his act of extreme selflessness in the past is what really matters. So the decision to spend so much time on it is a bit of a waste.

This is one of those movies which comes across as having only been made a narrative film because people don’t go to documentaries. To prove my point, did you know there are a handful, one of which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature? Most of them were released over ten years ago, and that winner was over twenty. Which makes this feel more cynical than it probably is, as if the filmmakers are capitalizing on the internet popularity of an event by making the first movie about it in many, many years, and even employing the use of a legendary actor to draw more people out to the theater. That being said, it is an important story, and Hopkins is obviously invested, as the number and variety of scenes he’s in makes it clear he was on set for a substantial amount of time. But given the lack of unique voice or the ability to bring anything new to the table, it kind of lands hollow. I wish the film had more of an “oomph” to it. Without it, it comes across as another cookie cutter biopic, with little new or interesting to offer.