One Life: A stunning Holocaust story

One Life (2024) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.15.24

Save one life, save the entire world.

 

Until this moment, it’s safe to assume that London stockbroker Nicholas “Nicky” Winton was unknown, here in the States, notwithstanding the 2014 publication of If It’s Not Impossible by his daughter, Barbara Winton.

 

In London, Nicholas "Nicky" Winton (Johnny Flynn) awaits the arrival of a train 
carrying a very special set of passengers.

And yet Oskar Schindler and Winton are revered for the same reason, and director James Hawes’ One Life is an equally moving spiritual cousin of 1993’s Schindler’s List.

There’s no indication of the miracle Winton orchestrated, as Hawes’ film opens. It’s 1988, and an elderly Nicky (Anthony Hopkins) has retired to a lovely countryside home that he shares with his wife, Grete (Lena Olin). He’s at loose ends, but she’s at wit’s end; Nicky’s lifetime of humanitarian work is catalogued in mountains of boxes that have taken over several rooms; there’s no space for them to enjoy the grandchild that their daughter and son-in-law soon will add to the family.

 

Of particular note: the contents of a battered brown suitcase, which rests inside a lower desk drawer.

 

Nicky’s malaise goes deeper. He’s deeply troubled by something that has haunted him for a very long time; Hopkins conveys all this via posture, a weary gaze, and an aura of regret that enshrouds him like a cloak.

 

We then flash back to December 1938, as young Nicky (Johnny Flynn) abruptly cancels a skiing holiday after receiving a telephone request for help from Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai) and Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp). They’re in Prague, helping refugees who’ve fled persecution from Austria and Germany, into Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

 

Nicky hastily travels to Prague, where he’s stunned by the magnitude of the crisis. The streets are filled with homeless people and families; food and shelter are scarce, and the cruel bite of winter has just begun. Most particularly, he’s appalled by the huge number of children in such a state: particularly vulnerable little bodies unlikely to survive the upcoming months of brutal weather.

 

Hawes doesn’t dwell on this misery, but cinematographer Zac Nicholson’s tracking shot pauses at key moments, highlighting forlorn individuals who establish the magnitude of this crisis.

 

Nicky impulsively insists that something must be done, which initially exasperates Doreen and Trevor, who gently scoff at Nicky’s naïvete. He’s a posh London stockbroker with virtually no experience in such matters; what could he possibly do, that boots-on-the-ground crisis workers haven’t been able to achieve?

Living: A magnificent character study

Living (2022) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for suggestive material and fleeting nudity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.27.23 

If Bill Nighy were able to shift a single eyebrow, I’ve no doubt the resulting expression would convey a wealth of emotion.

 

He’s that good.

 

Williams (Bill Nighy) is surprised to find Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood) working as a
waitress at her new posting, knowing that she took the job under the belief that she'd
be an assistant manager.

His performance here, as a morose, quietly contemplative civil servant, is a masterpiece of nuance. Nighy’s dialogue is spare; when speaking, he brings a wealth of depth and significance to every word, every syllable. And even when silent, his posture and gaze convey everything we need to know about this man, at each moment.

 

Some actors are born to play a particular role, and I can’t imagine anybody but Nighy playing this one. It will, I’m sure, remain his crown jewel.

 

Director Oliver Hermanus and scripter Kazuo Ishiguro deliver a meticulously faithful adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 classic, Ikiru, which in turn borrowed heavily from Leo Tolstoy’s 1886 novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich. (All concerned also owe a significant debt to Charles Dickens’ Bleak House.)

 

The year is 1953, the setting London: still struggling to recover from the bombing raids of World War II. Mr. Williams (Nighy), a lonely widower known by colleagues as “The Old Man,” is head of one department in a multi-story government building laden with similar subdivisions, all of which work hard at having nothing to do with each other.

 

Which is to say, most of these nattily attired men are hardly working.

 

It’s a bureaucratic maze of “D-19s,” “K Stacks” and countless other forms and protocols, where suggestions, proposals, petitions and heartfelt entreaties go to die, after being shuttled between — as just a few examples — Parks, Planning, Cleansing & Sewage, and Public Works (the latter a deliciously ironic oxymoron).

 

Public Works is Williams’ department, and whenever a folder shuttles back into his hands, he places in amid countless others on his desk. “We can keep it here,” Nighy sighs, in a disinterested tone. “There’s no harm.”

 

Rest assured, it’ll never be viewed again.

 

All of this is a shock to idealistic newbie Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp), who is dismayed to find a similar mountain of paper at his desk. Secretary Margaret Harris (Aimee Lou Wood), sympathetic to his first-day confusion, quietly advises Peter to maintain the height of his “skyscraper” of unfinished work, lest colleagues suspect him of “not having anything very important to do.”

The Trial of the Chicago Seven: Unbelievable, but true

The Trial of the Chicago Seven (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, violence and drug use

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.23.20 

Well, this one couldn’t be more timely.

 

Defense attorney William Kuntsler (Mark Rylance, center) and co-counsel Leonard
Weinglass (center left) do their best to protect the defendants — from left, Bobby Seale
(Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis
(Alex Sharp) — from the blatantly biased behavior of their courtroom judge.

Writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix original, a depiction of events during the notorious “Chicago Seven” trial — which lasted five months after beginning Sept. 24, 1969, following the August 1968 riots outside Chicago’s Democratic National Convention — is by turns mesmerizing, astonishing, scandalous and horrifying.

 

While Sorkin makes no claim to rigid, documentary-style authenticity, it’s important to understand that pretty much everything depicted here — even the most outrageous behavior — did indeed take place. The timeline has been manipulated a bit, and Sorkin clearly punches up some of the behind-the-scenes dialogue for dramatic impact.

 

But be advised: Every time you’re inclined to think, Oh, that couldn’t possibly have happened … you’ll be wrong.

 

The often crackling verbal exchanges are volleyed by a powerhouse ensemble cast dominated by four actors: Eddie Redmayne, as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) member Tom Hayden; Sacha Baron Cohen, as Youth International Party (Yippie) co-founder Abbie Hoffman; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale; and Mark Rylance, as defense attorney and civil rights activist William Kunstler.

 

The latter represented the Seven during their kangaroo-court trial before the incompetent, blatantly racist and deplorably biased Judge Julius Hoffman (a chilling Frank Langella).

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is just as compelling — albeit in a more calmly determined manner — as lead prosecutor Richard Schultz, hand-picked for this assignment by newly elected President Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell (John Doman, smugly condescending).

 

Jeremy Strong supplies mild comic relief as Yippie co-founder Jerry Rubin, who seems stoned during the lengthy proceeding. The remaining Seven are SDS member Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp); and National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (The MOBE) members David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), John Froines (Danny Flaherty) and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins).

 

The Hustle: Small-time con

The Hustle (2019) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for crude sexual content and profanity
By Derrick Bang

Office workers from the pre-digital era will recall that making copies of copies was an exercise in rapidly diminishing returns.

The results became increasingly smudgy. Less distinct.

Having agreed to a May The Best Woman Win grudge match, Josephine (Anne Hathaway,
right) seethes quietly when Penny (Rebel Wilson) blunders into a posh casino in the
guise of a blind American tourist.

Less acceptable.

Ergo, the news that we were getting a remake of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels — which itself is a remake of 1964’s Bedtime Story — was greeted with a gimlet eye (at best).

In fairness, director Chris Addison’s modest little comedy has its moments, most involving the Laurel & Hardy pairing of Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. The gender reversal is an inspired touch, with Hathaway and Wilson standing in for Michael Caine and Steve Martin (1988), and David Niven and — believe it or not — Marlon Brando (1964).

The core plot beats have been retained, with full acknowledgment to original writers Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning and Dale Launer. Scripter Jac Schaeffer has punched up this new film’s incidental sight gags, in order to tailor them to these femmes most fatale.

The premise remains the same: Sophisticated con artist Josephine Chesterfield (Hathaway), a seductive Brit with a penchant for fleecing gullible wealthy men of their expensive jewelry, has fashioned a glamorous lifestyle that includes an opulent home in the French Riviera’s Beaumont-sur-Mer.

Half a world away, low-level grifter Penny Rust (Wilson) rips off neighborhood bar low-lifes (making a point of targeting shallow jerks with a visible antipathy to her plus-size presence).

Collectively, they’re a welcome switch in this #MeToo era. God knows there are plenty of piggish men — of all social standings — who deserve serious comeuppance.

But whereas Josephine’s stylish scams have been honed to polished perfection — with the assistance of her urbane butler, Albert (Nicholas Woodeson), and the cheerfully corrupt local police captain, Brigitte Desjardins (Ingrid Oliver) — Penny’s sloppier, smash ’n’ grab approach has its drawbacks. Forced to flee the long arm of legitimate law, she impulsively winds up in Beaumont-sur-Mer.

Where Josephine is less than pleased to see such a vulgar, low-rent opportunist on her turf.