Film Review - One Life
Images courtesy of Transmission Films.
For about a decade or so, a video has repeatedly resurfaced within different crevices of the internet – immortalised through recurrent Reddit forums and vague clickbait articles published by websites that trigger warnings from my anti-virus software. The video in question? A clip from a 1988 episode of That’s Life in which an unassuming elderly gentleman sits amongst a studio audience; only for the host to reveal that the studio audience is entirely comprised of the children the man had valiantly rescued from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia half a century prior. One Life immortalises the altruism and bravery of Sir Nicholas Winton into an extraordinarily safe biopic which often flirts with drudgery – solely propelled forward by the emotional potency of its source material.
As is par for the course with most biopics, One Life wields a paralleled narrative in telling the story of Winton – a London-based stockbroker who helped champion the rescue of nearly 700 children from Prague as the threat of Nazi occupation loomed. Bouncing us back and forth between two timelines, this is a film of two distinct halves; one half a procedural thriller set in 1938 in which the younger Winton (Johnny Flynn) struggles with the monstrous task of resettling adolescent refugees at risk of Nazi persecution and assured annihilation; the other half in 1987 as the older Winton (Anthony Hopkins) reservedly ruminates on his wartime efforts upon the rediscovery of an old scrapbook he had kept over the years. A standout as always, Anthony Hopkins delivers a remarkable performance laden with charisma and nuance; delivering moments of humble stoicism alongside clever one-liners which had the middle-aged toffs in the cinema cackling.
However, despite such poignance, One Life struggles to make a real impact. Despite the older Winton’s insistence that he was not alone in his efforts – most other figures involved in the rescue of the Kindertransport are reduced to one-dimensional characters who serve only to spout exposition. At times, it feels like the film itself is on autopilot; the score; the cinematography; the dialogue. It is a very conventionally executed film that doesn’t really do anything interesting which, despite its subject matter, makes it rather uninteresting to talk about. This is a film seemingly justified only by the emotional magnitude of the premise itself.
Although One Life is rather by-the-numbers in its realisation, the tale of Nicky’s children is a remarkable story which we should be glad has been wrestled from the annals of obscurity – despite deserving an adaptation a little more daring by design. Ultimately, whilst its premise is much stronger than its humdrum execution, One Life succeeds in reminding us of the inherent goodness of ordinary people.
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One Life is screening in cinemas from Boxing Day. For tickets and more info, click here.