No holocaust film can match the sheer artistry of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 instant classic, “Schindler’s List,” in my opinion. “One Life,” however, starring Anthony Hopkins, comes close. While equaling “Schindler” in terms of a potent story, it can’t match Spielberg’s painterly eye, virtuoso use of black-and-white, and mastery of the entire storytelling toolbox, from high comedy to deepest tragedy. But make no mistake—the story of Nicholas Winton stands on its own.
Nicholas Winton (Hopkins), who was 106 years old when he died in 2015, started out in life as a London stockbroker, who then went on to rescue 669 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, saving them from certain death by the Nazis, and demonstrating that—as “ordinary” as he professed to be—he was anything but.
However, for most of his life, Winton’s rescue of those children was unknown to the public. In 1988, his story was revealed dramatically on the BBC show “That’s Life!” He was blindsided by the host, in one of those sneaky reunions beloved of such shows due to the raw emotion that the element of surprise engenders. He discovered himself, at the end of the show, to be seated in an audience largely composed of the now-grown-up children he’d saved. Winton was dubbed the “British Schindler” and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003.
Anthony Hopkins
Winton was a surpassingly modest, quiet elderly man who liked to keep to himself. Who other than Anthony Hopkins would you cast to portray such a character? Because, also in Hopkin’s wheelhouse, much like his butler character in “The Remains of the Day,” when the dam finally breaks on the pent-up emotion he’s been stoically stuffing the entire film, it’s volcanic. Quietly so, but nevertheless—you’re going to need an entire box of tissues to deal with it.
From London to Prague
“One Life,” efficiently directed by James Hawes, tells its story in flashbacks. We first meet the elder Winton in 1987, in his suburban home in the town of Maidenhead, in southeast England.
He’s looking at haunting, faded photos of children from the war. Winton keeps busy with local charity work, but he’s a virulent pack-rat; his study is stuffed to the gills with odds and ends, especially a tattered old leather briefcase containing a sacred scrapbook full of war memorabilia. His concerned wife Grete (Olin) pleads with him to declutter the house. “You have to let go, for your own sake.”
Then, we flash back to London in 1939. Nicholas, 29, who lives with his mother Babi (Bonham Carter), is of Jewish ancestry, but was raised as a Christian. He’s planning to finally fly the coop and travel to Prague.
He’s become aware of the growing crisis caused by the influx of Jewish refugees from the Sudetenland region, which Hitler just annexed. It’s pretty clear that a Nazi invasion is imminent and the refugees will soon find themselves death-camp-bound.
The Hook Is Set
One of the most powerful scenes occurs when Nicky, as he’s known, arrives in Prague. He’s transfixed by the horror of it all; quietly shocked to his core by the vulnerability of the starving children living in squalor. He didn’t sign up for this; didn’t foresee it. Yet, his soul responds like the guardian angel he is; he will draw his sword and stand guard over the helpless and the hopeless. He has no choice, that’s who he is—a man with a giant heart of compassion.
Winton witnesses a 12-year-old girl holding an infant who has lost its parents. “We have to move the children,” he tells his colleagues, expecting their involvement will be self-evident. They, however, shrink from the massively daunting task, mildly resenting this Johnny-come-lately; self-righteously adding weight to their already prodigious workload. They do understand, though. How could one not? And they eventually come onboard.
Winton digs in. He sits down with a local rabbi to get lists of all the children who need saving. The rabbi inquires as to Nicky’s heritage. “I was raised Christian.” “I would call you a Jew.” “I’m putting their lives in your hands. Don’t start what you cannot finish.”
Back in London, and backed by his indomitable and indignant mother who guilt-trips government officials into action, Nicholas is caught up in a race against time and bureaucracy; attempting to obtain complicated paperwork and visas for the children, and trying to raise awareness of the situation in the media.
Nicholas, by hook and by crook and by dint of sheer persistence, eventually gets the transports underway, meeting the trains in London, and matching the offloading kids with volunteering foster families. Obviously, some of the most moving scenes are the train departures from Prague; cars loaded with terrified children and distraught parents saying their goodbyes that are quite possibly final and forever.
Fifty Years
More than 50 years separate the two versions of Winton. His campaign of child-rescue was two years before the Nazis began implementing the mass murder of European Jews. As the film toggles between 1939 and 1988, we learn that Winton heroically got eight trains of children out. However, there was a ninth train, with 250 children onboard, which was turned back and rerouted to a death camp when the full-on Nazi horror-show commenced. Winton keeps this loss buried deep inside.
Then, he meets a Holocaust researcher who happens to be married to media mogul Robert Maxwell. That meeting ultimately leads to the film’s crux, in the television studio, faithfully recreated by director James Hawes, who actually himself had once worked on that very BBC show.
