The extraordinary tale of one man's fight for justice is sensitively adapted for the silver screen

“I am an ordinary person,” declares Nicholas Winton, the man who saved 669 Czech children from the Nazis. The young Winton (Johnny Flynn) defines himself as a European and a socialist, but hesitates to declare his Jewish background. Similarly coy, in advertising this film, Warner Brothers glossed over the fact that the kindertransport was the rescue of mostly Jewish children.

In 1939, Winton visited Prague for a month to work with Doreen Warriner, a left-wing activist leading a small team bringing adult refugees to Britain. Trevor Chadwick, an Oxford graduate, had already escorted children to England, but there was no authorised rescue provision for juveniles. Winton set up a children’s committee with official-looking notepaper, writing to anybody of influence for support. Back in London, and with the help of his mother (regally played by Helena Bonham Carter), Winton wrestled with bureaucracy. He obtained visas and the necessary papers, found foster families, and raised the compulsory £50 warranty for each child, as demanded by the British government.

The film, directed by James Hawes, shifts between two separate time frames: one set in 1939 and the other in the 1980s. It opens with the older Winton counting coins from charity tins. He pockets a button dropped into the collection, telling his wife it might come in useful. Sometime later, the button does the job when an additional coin is needed for a parking meter. This shows us, not just that Winton was involved in grassroots charity work, but also that the ordinary can achieve unexpected results.

Anthony Hopkins captures Winton’s understated manner, the slight bemusement of a decent man caught in the act of a magnificent gesture that had previously struck him as perfectly normal. Prior to media attention, Winton had been living a quiet life in Maidenhead. He had never expected thanks for what he did, let alone public recognition. I remember him in London, sitting in front of an audience that sang his praises while he absentmindedly chewed a peanut. That was how he handled the greatness that had been thrust upon him.

In 1988, Winton was invited to the BBC to meet Esther Rantzen. He had no idea that he would join the That’s Life! audience and be seated next to Vera Gissing, one of the children he had saved. The following week, the studio was packed with other rescued kinder and their descendants. Standing to reveal themselves to Winton was reality TV’s finest moment: a reminder that while populist programmes could be daft and trivial, they could also be humane, bringing people together, instead of dividing them.

Winton has been labelled the ‘British Schindler’, but the two men were completely different. Oskar Schindler was a chancer whose daring rescue of 1,200 Jews initially benefited himself. Winton was a good man motivated by sheer altruism. Goodness is not compelling entertainment; the tension in this film emanates from the villains off-stage, the encroaching Nazis as they moved into Czechoslovakia. Winton and his team battled against time. Eight trains carried children to safety in the UK, but the outbreak of war prevented the ninth from leaving, meaning 251 youngsters never reached the British families waiting in London and only two of those children survived. A poignant shot in the film shows Winton standing at an empty station.

Who was willing to take in the children of foreign strangers? They were ordinary people: as “ordinary” as Winton’s determination, chutzpah and passion for justice. We should all strive to be that ordinary.

By Irene Wise

One Life is out now in cinemas nationwide. warnerbros.co.uk/movies/one-life