The story of Sir Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Winton, a young London broker who, in the months leading up to World War II, rescued 669 predominantly Jewish children from the Nazis.

‘One Life’ is a World War II human interest movie about Nicholas Winton, a humanitarian who helped hundreds of Jewish children escape German-occupied Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s, just before the Second World War broke out. His story was brought to the attention of the British public through the popular BBC TV series ‘That’s Life’, which broadcast a couple of episodes in the 1980s that reunited Winton with some of the children he saved (well worth seeking out the actual footage of the episodes on YouTube after watching this movie), and ‘One Life’ dramatises this story with Anthony Hopkins playing the elderly Winton.

The true story is conventionally told in ‘One Life’, with the movie switching between the ‘present’ with an elderly Nicholas Winton (Anthony Hopkins), and the ‘past’, when he (Johnny Flynn as the younger version) was attempting to arrange the rescue of Czech children from Prague. The segments in the past cover the challenges Winton and his accomplices faced in setting up the transfers, from both the Nazis and British bureaucracy, with the dedication and resolve of those involved shown to great effect. In the present, the focus is on an elderly man still struggling to come to terms with the children he was unable to save. It is elevated both by the inspirational true-life story at its heart, which you can’t fail to be moved by, as well as the brilliant Anthony Hopkins, who is producing some of his best performances in the twilight years of his career.

‘One Life’ is a well made movie from James Hawes that pays tribute to a remarkable man and a remarkable story, with Anthony Hopkins leading a strong cast, and if you leave the cinema with a dry eye after watching this I’ll be surprised.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: James Hawes

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn, Helena Bonham Carter, Romola Garai, Lena Olin, Alex Sharp, Samantha Spiro and Jonathan Pryce

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt13097932/