Living
Screen grandaddy Bill Nighy is at his most earnest and heartbreaking in Oliver Hermanus’ Living, a tale of regret and delayed determination. Based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru, which itself is inspired by a Tolstoy novella, the film trades Tokyo for London and follows a senior council employee whose terminal cancer diagnosis leads to the realisation that existence and experience are not the same thing. What sounds like a bit of a dire time is actually a surprisingly balanced take on the nature of human inspiration, posing the question: is it only possible to seize the day if those that follow are finite?
Mr Williams (Nighy) lives a tedious life indeed. Any cheer felt by those beneath him is carefully hidden out of respect as he walks by and replaced with a swift “Good morning, Mr Williams” and a tip of the hat. Always keeping an appropriate distance as they follow him from the train to their place of work (London City Council), they seem to revere him for his ability to show absolutely no emotion. One, the lively Miss Harris (Aimee Lou Wood), even nicknames him Mr Zombie, but she presumably tells none of her colleagues because it’s not that kind of workplace. It’s also 1953 and jovial employee relationships (at least in local government) are frowned upon. That is, until Mr Williams receives a diagnosis that will lead to him becoming the first (and last) council employee with a sense of urgency.
The outlook for stomach cancer in the 50s was about the same as getting a bomb site turned into a playground, but as luck would have it, the timing of both lines up perfectly. A petition proposing just that falls in the lap of Mr Williams, whose normal course of action is to “hold onto it” for a time before sending it back to the department who handballed it. This particular bundle of papers comes from a trio of women painfully used to the inner workings of the Council. As someone who parleyed with multiple City of Cockburn employees about a Vintage Red Sugargum, only to receive an entirely different tree come planting season six months later, I can somewhat relate. Living gives us a rare glimpse into a side of government we’ve only ever experienced via Leslie Knope, while immersing us in a story that might’ve been horribly true for many of Mr Williams’ generation who were taught to hold things in and live quietly.
Based on a script by novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, Living has a definite bookish feel that complements its small scale. Mr Williams has no bucket list - he doesn’t even know what to do with the money he’s withdrawn from his account, nor with the sleeping pills he’s stockpiled - instead, giving the latter to a tortured writer he meets at a seaside diner (played by the marvellous Tom Burke). The greatest insight we get into this lost old man’s soul is his hauntingly beautiful rendition of ‘The Rowan Tree’ when his writer acquaintance takes him to a pub and shows him how not to spend the remainder of his days. Nighy dazzles throughout the film but particularly in this scene, serving up Junior Soprano breaking out in song at a post-funeral get together. Producer Stephen Woolley observes that “A common emotion between people in Japan and Britain, which I think Ishiguro has found, is that they both have the same stoic restraint.” If there’s a distinct turning point in Mr Williams’ life, it’s this.
The film touches on sicknesses felt elsewhere in society at the time, like Williams’ son, who never broaches the subject (encouraged by his pushy wife) of moving out of Williams’ home. Or their awful neighbour, whose main vocation seems to be spying and spreading suburban gossip to anyone who’ll listen. But Williams finds relief in Miss Harris, whose enthusiasm and vitality seem to inspire in him the push needed not to waste what time he has left. Theirs is one of the more wholesome surrogate father/daughter relationships you’ll find on screen this year - second only to a certain cordyceps fighting duo. With Miss Harris, who happens to be leaving council work for the more chaotic atmosphere of a tearoom (conditional upon his good reference), Mr Williams is able to come out of his shell and be frank about his health and fear of becoming, as he describes, “the child who comes willingly from a playground when called by his mother.”
The tagline for the film reads “It’s never too late to start” but the depressing thing is that for Mr Williams, it kind of is. No late surge of inspiration is going to make up for the decades he’s spent doing nothing in life and nothing of note at work; the point Living makes is that it may make a difference to someone else. The film doesn’t dwell on the overwhelming sadness of the situation, rather on the compounding power that one small act of kindness can have on a large cohort dependent on its outcome. Williams’ last great burst of energy does inspire those around him but human memory, like life or a playground built in the middle of the city, doesn’t last forever. It is somehow more meaningful that he would exert such effort during a time when he is no doubt feeling physically awful, for something that, in the grand scheme of things, is fleeting.
Despite some clunky dialogue between Williams’ underlings when discussing his reasoning for picking such an unimportant matter from the pile, Living is a universally palatable, gorgeously produced film that should resonate with most viewers. It’s possible that some of its spelled-out messages might not have translated so well from the vintage material, but as life got in the way between the film’s screening and my intention to watch Ikiru for comparison, I may only get an answer after the fact.
Living is a delightfully simple story of 11th hour bursts of purpose and the freedom that comes from shedding suppression. While I initially left the cinema feeling a little underwhelmed - the previous Saturday’s film was Aftersun and I’d not quite recovered - time to steep has strengthened its flavour.
Verdict: ☆☆☆☆
Living is in cinemas March 16.
