There are many adjectives that come to mind when I think of Nazis, but “boring” is not among them … until now that is. Part of me wants to give director James Hawes a standing ovation – do you know how difficult it is to tell a story with the standard for villainy in the 20th and 21st Centuries and make it seem deadly dull? Bravo, sir. Brav-o. Your listless knockoff Schindler’s List could put Nazis themselves to sleep.
Told in two different timelines to compete over who snore it better, One Life is the biography of heroic-but-stiff stockbroker Sir Nicholas Winton (Anthony Hopkins old, Johnny Flynn young), the Englishman who rescued 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia before WWII broke out all over. Is Nicky Winton a hero? No question. Should people know who he is? Definitely. Then why is his story such a snore-fest?
Nicky Winton had never been to Czechoslovakia before the powers that be had already ceded the Sudetenland to Hitler in 1938. He had planned to meet a friend for a ski trip … was that a joke? What wasn’t a joke is the part where he showed up to find the Nazis already sorting the populace into Jews and other. In Prague, Winton spots destitute families who already fled Nazis in Germany and Austria. Whereas England had procedures in place to relocate refugees from those countries, there was nothing similar going on in Czechoslovakia, so Winton took it upon himself to get the Jewish children to England.
So far I’m with you, movie. Well, sort of. Anthony Hopkins is doing his usual English old man routine of playing down accomplishments in favor of tea, and Johnny Flynn has all the appeal of a desk lamp. But the cause is noble, right? So what could make this tale fall flat? I mean you got innocent kids, you got Nazis. This thing practically writes itself – you show Nazi hunting parties. You show peril. You show scared children. You show worried parents. Here’s what you don’t show: bureaucracy.
And nobody gives a flying fart about 1988 Nicky Winston. Yeah, I’m sure it came in handy to get Hopkins on the marquee, but the story was about 1938. So Nicky Winston grew up to be an old man who got an award? That’s some quality writing. Please, let’s devote half the film to Hopkins talking with his old man friend Jonathan Pryce. Oh, and do let them discuss red tape. That seems like fun, right? I mean, what’s better than showing Nazi terrorism? Having two old guys almost talk about decades later.
Honestly, if you’re discussing Nazism with a PG rating, you’re doing it wrong. That’s a given.
Back in 1938, Nicky Winton is reasonably unnerved by the things he encounters, but they all stop shy of
truly threatening. There’s never a time in this film in which I believe, “if he doesn’t makes these moves, these children all die” which is an absolutely tragedy as – that is the genuine truth.
One fault in this piece rises above the others … and that is that the film is about Sir Nicholas Winton. Producers, director Hawes, three (3) screenwriters, you all have completely missed the point of Schindler’s List, haven’t you? Yeah, the title said “Schindler” and we sure meet Oskar Schindler, but the film isn’t about him, is it? Schindler’s List is about Nazi atrocity. Imagine if you took out the most poignant moments of Schindler’s List – the little girl in red, the commandant waking up and shooting Jews as part of his morning routine, the children hiding in waste deep lakes of human waste … and replaced them all with Oskar twenty years later having tea and talking about the old times.
I won’t call One Life a bad film necessarily. This is an important man we all should know. But wow, did you suck all the human intrigue out of this tale, didn’t you? This is a story about refugee children and you made it about an old white man. Well done.
There once lived a broker named Nicky
Who saw situation most sticky
The Nazisaurus Rex
Rounding up Jewish Czechs
Prompting our hero to make maneuvers most tricky
Rated PG, 109 Minutes
Director: James Hawes
Writer: Lucinda Coxon, Nick Drake, Barbara Winton
Genre: Missing the point
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The survivors of Sir Nicholas Winton
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Nazis, filmgoers in general
