If you happened to tune into the TV show That’s Life! one evening in February 1988, nestled somewhere between the usual sections on consumer advice and veg shaped like a cock and balls, you would have been introduced to an incredible story of compassion and courage that had been previously buried in the stoic memories of one Nicholas Winton. This elderly gentleman, along with a team of associates, had saved the lives of 669 Jewish children by organising their evacuation from Czechoslovakia to London in the months before the outbreak of war. One Life tells that story. It’s an ordinary film about an extraordinary man, but his tale speaks for itself.

James Hawes film efficiently splits the narrative between 1938 and 1988, encompassing the elderly Winton’s recollections of his tireless efforts sparked by his witnessing the plight of homeless families left freezing and starving after the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland. Anthony Hopkins, at his most quietly dignified and restrained, plays ‘Nicky’, with Johnny Flynn portraying him as his dynamic younger self. Director James Hawes posits the efforts of Winton and his equally brave and dedicated associates as a torrent of chaotic memory leading up to that revelatory moment in the much cosier confines of a British TV studio.

Hopkins continues his late-career purple patch with a performance of impeccable control. There’s a lifetime of tension beneath Nicky’s humble, benign surface; his grief and guilt for those he failed to save stored like a battery. It’s far from his showiest role, but like a jazz drummer in a three-chord punk band, he’s playing to the needs of the song.

It’s also to Johnny Flynn’s immense credit that Hopkins isn’t missed too much when not on screen. The through line between the two incarnations of Nicky is clear and convincing, and there’s a real sense of urgency to the organisation of the Kindertransport. Flynn also has the more than capable backing of Romola Garai as a fellow activist, and Helena Bonham-Carter, injecting just a smidge of humour as Nicky’s formidable mother.

One Life is a handsome crowd-pleaser of a package. To be sure, it’s utterly conventional in its storytelling, and a little televisual in its presentation. It also strips away a lot of the tedious bureaucracy which would detract from drama, but which has the effect of making the mammoth achievement seem not quite as daunting as it clearly was. Still, there is little that will match that moving moment of incredible catharsis. We’ve all seen the clip, but with the context provided by the full narrative, it’s a moment of pure emotion that’s completely earned, without being at all mawkish.

In cinemas nationwide now