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‘A life’
Credits: Directed by James Hawes, starring Anthony Hopkins, Lena Olin and Johnny Flynn.
Evaluation/Runtime: PG for thematic material, smoking and some language. 114 minutes.
How to Watch: At the Movies
The cinematic symbol of young people boarding World War II trains is often traumatic. But in “One Life,” directed by James Hawes, he is a symbol of wild, blind hope, as young men board trains in Prague, bound for England, fleeing the dire situation. Refugee camp situations and the invasion of the Nazi occupation are probably just a few steps away.
“One Life” tells the story of Sir Nicholas “Nicky” Winton, a British stockbroker and humanitarian who, in 1939, helped organize the escape of 669 children from Czechoslovakia. Written by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, the film is based on a book by Winton’s daughter, Barbara Winton, “If it’s not impossible. . . The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton. ” The film marks Hawes’ directorial debut, as he directed the first season of the Apple TV spy series “Slow Horses. “
“One Life” connects two periods in Winton’s life, 50 years apart. Sir Anthony Hopkins plays Winton in 1987, enjoying a non-violent retirement life with his wife, Grete (Lena Olin), in Maidenhead. At Grete’s request, while cleaning her office, she discovers her old scrapbook containing the archives and remnants of her pre-war efforts to shelter young people. His efforts went unnoticed in the years that followed, the young people dispersed to foster homes all over Britain, but he remains haunted by their faces, photographed in photographs that he examines with a magnifying glass.
Johnny Flynn plays Winton five decades earlier, a stern and quiet young man, the son of German Jewish immigrants who switched to Christianity and changed their surname to assimilate in England. Troubled by news coming from the occupied Sudetenland, he took a leave of absence from his job at the bank and met with a friend in Prague to help him with the refugee efforts. He immediately took an interest in the cause of the evacuation of as many young men as possible to England.
The comparison to “Schindler’s List” is apt – Winton was colloquially known as “British Schindler” – and the film will seem familiar, even formulaic, because we’ve noticed films like this one about World War II and the Holocaust. Hawes uses this iconography and elements of the tale without exploiting or sensationalizing the material; The film is emotionally restrained in a way that is almost frustrating at times, but in the end reflects Winton’s quiet and unassuming personality.
As he ponders what to do with his album, it’s the other people in his life, including his longtime friend Martin Blake (Jonathan Pryce) and others like Elizabeth “Betty” Maxwell (Marthe Keller), Holocaust researcher and wife of famed media mogul Robert Maxwell, who underscores how Winton spearheaded a significant humanitarian achievement. In fact, it’s not until Winton appears in an unexpected episode of the British communication show “That’s Life” that he’s able to understand the human impact on his efforts and emotion begin to make an appearance.
There’s an understated, understated, yet profound look to Hawes’s paintings: the pre-war chronology is the kind of counterfeit World War II cinema we’d expect, interpreted with comforting authenticity. As audience members, we crave a little more naked emotion or even self. -Nicky’s motivation (Flynn’s functionality is quieter than ever). But Hawes and the writers embark on mental investigations.
They seem less interested in why Winton did it and more interested in what he just did, because tied to some inherent values of decency and kindness that were instilled in him through his mother (Helena Bonham Carter), he implemented his documentary skills into the logistical nightmare that he was. Get those little little kids out of a terrible situation. He and his friends Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai) and Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp) describe themselves as other people who gather an army of other people to do anything not only good, but also to save lives, for innocent young people caught in the jaws of war.
“One Life” is a slow process that slowly builds Winton’s modesty as a young and old man, but when it opens, it’s a deeply moving portrait of true human goodness. The emotional resonance comes not from the dramatic occasions of the war, but rather from the long-term effects of Winton’s efforts many years later. His story shows that a few months spent helping others can become a generational legacy, that six hundred souls can become 6,000, and that one life can have a lasting influence. an effect on the world.