'The Winton Children': the most salvageable, Mr. Anthony Hopkins

Not being able (or wanting) to resort to the Internet, an inexhaustible and already exclusive source of information, I tend to have no idea what I am going to see at press screenings.

I come on most occasions in a state of virginity.

And sometimes I come out sleepy, or indifferent, or blaspheming.

Therefore I did not know the plot of

Winton's Children.

It is due to chance, or to my love for what I consider to be great cinema, that the night before I reviewed at home

Goodbye, Boys,

that moving masterpiece by Louis Malle.

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A thousand Hollywood workers denounce Jonathan Glazer's speech at the Oscars for “fueling anti-Jewish hatred”

And in recent months I have also suffered again with the shocking

Schindler's List

and

The Pianist.

And my eyes water again at the ending of

Goodbye, boys,

with the boy and his Jewish friend saying goodbye almost furtively and forever with his gaze and his little hand, this boy walks away from extermination, along with two other camouflaged Jewish children and the priest who hid and protected them.

It is wonderful how Malle tells, with such credibility, depth and complexity, that story so full of life, so happy and so sad.

Johnny Flynn and Helena Bonham Carter, in 'The Winton Children'.

Imbued with the images and sounds of the previous film, I discover after a few minutes that

Winton's Children

also addresses that monstrosity of the Holocaust.

The story they tell here apparently was real, although logically licenses are allowed.

An English citizen, a prosperous stockbroker, proposed in 1939 to seek refuge in homes in England for hundreds of Jewish children, residing in Prague, destined to be subjected to Nazi barbarism when their country was invaded.

He, helped by his decisive and humanistic mother, circumvented the bureaucracy, imagined escape routes, tirelessly sought the solidarity of English families willing to welcome him, and managed to clandestinely evacuate 669 children on trains.

He never publicized his feat, but he jealously kept in his memory and through multiple documents everything that happened in the past.

He remained anonymous until the 1980s.

A very famous television program, in which he dared to be interviewed, allowed him to learn about the past and present of those children about whom he had never heard anything again.

The story and its glorious outcome bring together a multitude of dramatic and humanistic elements to make the viewer melt, but in my case it does not happen.

What director James Hawes tells is very transcendent (a man whose resume includes several episodes of the uneven series

Black Mirror,

I don't know if the best or the worst), but he does it in an academic way, with a tendency towards the conventional, I don't like it. It transmits neither cold nor heat even though it abusively resorts to music, that very easy resource, to transmit emotion to the viewer.

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What is difficult to ignore is the presence of the now elderly Anthony Hopkins.

This introverted, anti-exhibitionist, native, enlightened, tenacious and honest man, in jealous possession of a memory committed to history and his extraordinary and generous experiences, exudes verisimilitude with the presence of Hopkins.

Yes, the most fascinating cannibal in the history of cinema.

It's a pleasure to see Hopkins.

And Helena Bonham Carter, pure and eternal class, playing her helpful mother.

The Holocaust theme should be inexhaustible.

But better if directors like Spielberg, Polanski, Malle and, lately, Jonathan Glazer with

The Zone of Interest take care of it.

And it would be desirable for cinema and series to ever portray the massacre of children that is being perpetrated in Gaza, although this topic is too raw to see the light of day on screens.

The Winton Children

Director:

James Hawes.

Starring:

Anthony Hopkins, Lena Olin, Johnny Flynn, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Steed. 

Genre:

drama.

United Kingdom, 2023.

Duration:

109 minutes.

Premiere: March 22.

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