Rent One Life (2023)

Fascinating subject matter - One Life review by AER

One Life is a fascinating film about a humanitarian act instigated by a London stockbroker (Nicholas Winton) in the late 1930s. Despite a lack of time, endless bureaucracy, and an imminent Nazi invasion, some brave people led by Winton arranged for nearly 700 Jewish children to be moved to the UK. It's stirring stuff. Alas the film is pretty flat, with OTT supporting performances from Helena Bonham Carter, and Helen Spiro (ridiculous as Esther Rantzen). However, certain scenes led by Anthony Hopkins re particularly good, but he can't save this very average treatment of a hugely brave act by a select few. It's certainly a film to raise debate about current views to helping those in dire need. This isn't the place for political rants, but I will say that it's also a call to be kinder and a bit more worldly.

Interesting subject - flat presentation with off-beat annoying actors overdoing their bit parts.

An Important, Necessary Film about a Genuine Hero who saved over 600 Children - One Life review by PV

I think all young people should watch this film as they do Schindler's List. The latter is high-budget and world famous from a novel by a great writer and directed by the most successful movie director in Hollywood history.

The former cannot compete with that span and range and spectacle or horror. It is a far more modest film of course, rather like a TV drama actually which maybe it should have been. Most know the story and the famous REVEAL clip on THAT'S LIFE.

This is lifted by scenes of Prague in 1930s - a history most viewers will not know about. As I know the city and its history very well, I do. Of course a film like this has to show snapshots of what happened, without much detail, and there is little brutality shown either - this is a real family film, i suppose.

Winton is a fascinating character - and one fault of the film is to call him a stockbroker,. Yes, he was from a well-off posh family and went to STowe public school, then worked in banking in Germany, France and UK. BUT he was also an ardent socialist and anti-appeasement of the Nazis. He grew to detest the City - and never worked in it again after returning from Prague. He worked for refugee charities and others post WWII.

He also acknowledged the vital roles in Prague of others like Doreen Warriner, Trevor Chadwick,Nicholas Stopford, Beatrice Wellington, Josephine Pike, Bill Barazetti who worked to evacuate children from Europe. Winton stayed in Prague only about three weeks and left before the Nazis occupied the country.He never set foot in the Prague main railway station, although a statue of him is erected there

Anthony Hopkins is perfectly cast here. The connection with that old crook Robert Maxwell is shown as his is French (protestant Christian) wife, whose daughter Ghislaine is now doing 20 years in jail in the USA after hooking up with Jeffrey Epstein. Robert Maxwell was a remarkable man born in a poor Jewish family in what became Czechoslovakia, and most of his relatives died in Auschwitz.

The statistic given in the film is shocking - 15000 Czech children went to the camps in WWII and only 200 survived. Winton saved over 600 children who came to Britain - many lost their parents and entire families in the Nazi holocaust. Important to remember this in the present - especially with the sly rise of Anti-Semitism now.

So not perfect, a little film a biopic basically but important and necessary, so 4 stars