Living (PG, 102mins) Directed by Oliver Hermanus *****
Bill Nighy is at his stunning, tightly-wound best in this poignant and powerful English-language “reimagining” of Akira Kurosawa’s much-loved 1952 movie Ikiru (To Live).
He plays Mr Rodney Williams, a respected, no-nonsense English civil servant known for his attention to detail and decisiveness.
As head of the London County Council’s public works department, Williams demands and commands respect – and often silence – as his team’s latest member Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp) discovers on his opening day.
But despite a fearsome reputation, Williams is simply aloof rather than antagonistic, fiercely loyal to his own staff, especially as they battle the bureaucracy of other departments to get things done – like investigating a petition for a playground from a local community.
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As we eventually learn though, away from the office, Williams is a man in crisis.
A cancer diagnosis has seen him not only withdraw half his life savings, but contemplate the unthinkable.
Normally fastidiously punctual and reliable, his failure to turn up to work leaves his colleagues confused and more than a little worried. But while on his secret seaside sojourn, Williams encounters an insomniac writer (Tom Burke), their café conversation sparking a rapport and a resolve by the normally reserved Williams to not only put his affairs in order, but “live a little” before it’s too late. Only, as he readily admits, he doesn’t know “how to live a little”.
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Bill Nighy is simply superb as Living’s Mr Rodney Williams.
Opportunity knocks when he encounters his young, vivacious former workmate Miss Margaret Harris (Aimee Lou Wood). Inviting her to lunch at Fortnum and Mason’s, he laps up her tales of her new employment as a waitress, while she enjoys her Knickerbocker Glory and admits that they had given him the nickname “Mr Zombie” around the office. It’s a sobriquet he greets with a wry smile.
Unfortunately, their rendezvous is spotted by a nosy neighbour who informs Williams’ son and daughter-in-law. They are not impressed. “She’s barely a woman, hardly a lady,” is the terse remark during the tense atmosphere that prevails over that evening’s Shepherd’s Pie dinner.
Still, such a scathing observation and attempt to shame him doesn’t deter Williams from seeking out Miss Harris’ company once again, this time to join him at the pictures for a screening of Clarke Gable’s 1949 comedy I Was a Male War Bride.
But, as he seeks to continue their evening out with a drink, she cautions him that “someone might suppose that you are becoming infatuated”. Somewhat shocked, he assures her that’s not the case, instead clarifying that “I’d hoped you’d teach me to be like you”.
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Williams’ burgeoning friendship with the much younger Miss Margaret Harris (Aimee Lou Wood) is one of the highlights of Living.
Boasting sumptuous costume and production design, South African director Oliver Hermanus’ (The Endless River) 1953-set tale evokes memories of the mid-century movies of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (A Matter of Life and Death, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp), as well as 1990s literary inspired romantic period dramas Shadowlands and The Remains of the Day.
Of course, the latter was based on the Booker Prize-winning 1988 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, who is on screenwriting duties here. There are certain similarities between Rodney Williams and that story’s James Stevens, especially in the (James) Joycian nature of their ambitions, self-imposed constraints and repressed emotions, only there’s a catharsis here that feels just the like the tonic viewers need in these increasingly troubled times.
A gorgeous orchestral soundtrack by French composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch (Rocks) underscores and reflects the film’s mood, while Sex Education’s Wood is a revelation as Miss Harris.
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Boasting sumptuous costume and production design, Living evokes memories of the mid-century movies of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, as well as 1990s literary inspired romantic period dramas Shadowlands and The Remains of the Day.
However, Living belongs to Nighy.
A nuanced, compelling and heartrending performance that deserves far more than just his first Academy Awards nomination, this may just be the role that he’ll be most remembered for (thank goodness it won’t be Love Actually’s Billy Mack anymore).
Sure Butler channeled the King and Fraser emerged intact from under all those prosthetics in The Whale, but if there’s any justice, the Best Actor Oscar handed out on March 13 (NZ Time) should be coming to a 73-year-old man born in the British county of Surrey.
After advance previews from this weekend, Living will screen in select cinemas nationwide from March 16.
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