Working in the capital on and off this year I was consistently startled by the phone bubbles most people chose to live in while travelling, walking the streets or even in cafés with a perfectly competent human being sitting opposite them engrossed in their own digital dreamworld. I don't mean to sound critical. Societies evolve and sometimes we are simply just part of that evolution. This strange behaviour from my point of view is completely normal to a younger person. Of course I indulge myself with my own phone sometimes but have always found face time (not FaceTime) inestimably more attractive and nourishing. The thrust of Living is how important it is to do so with vibrancy, urgency and passion, three aspects of character ripped from a man's life after the death of his wife.

Living starts with the sights of London in the 1950s in colour, presumably scrubbed up stock footage, and for one moment I thought the filmmakers would standardise their own footage with the same patina as the well-tended but inescapably seventy year-old celluloid. As we cut to the first non-stock shot, it's instantly sharper and perfect looking. But the mood has been set. We know where we are and when we are. We first meet Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy) as a pin-striped, bowler hatted and brolly carrying cliché of a very specific Englishman. He is talked about in awed and hushed tones among his underlings. He takes the train to his stultifying office, piled high with files in what appears to be Brazil's Ministry of Information. This is where administration is supposed to happen but rarely does. Williams has more in common with Sir Humphrey Appleby of the brilliant Yes, Minister, quietly ensuring that change is arrested as much as possible. Unencumbered by the merest flicker of life, Williams thwarts outside plans and sends poor groups of people campaigning for action all over the building, fobbing them off to different departments which in turn send them back to him where he files the problematic file in a tray reserved for the most vigorous inaction where "…it can do no harm."

But everything changes, as everything must, once Williams gets a stomach cancer diagnosis and suddenly he finds himself mutely contemplating a six month period of life left to him in which he vows to actually live. The problem is, he has no idea what actually living is. With no word to his son or his workers, he decamps to the south of England with a hearty supply of sleeping pills. Upon hearing a bohemian writer talking about his insomnia, Williams gives up his (one presumes, suicide) pills and urges his new found friend to show him how to live. Mr. Sutherland, the insomniac played by Tom Burke, once a BBC Musketeer and Cormoran Strike in the Robert Galbraith TV adaptations, allows Williams to open up. He loses his bowler to a reveller so Sutherland purchases a less sedate trilby for his new friend. If you know this, you regard the film's poster to be a lot smarter than it may seem at first. But despite the alluring idea of intoxication being somehow liberating of spirit, he leaves the excesses of alcohol to find his muse. And there she was, right under his nose. Co-worker Margaret, winningly played by Aimee Lou Wood, is a humble soul whose simplicity and essential humanity is seen by Williams as the very model of a person who lives actively savouring what life may offer. The fact she is unaware of this is a nod in her favour. Some people's normal is other people's extraordinary. She becomes the catalyst to a Scrooge-like turn around from Mr. Williams who now devotes what's left of his life to making a positive difference, however small, to other people. Yes, I'm very well aware that this is a theme explored by many films before Living but again, it's the execution of well-worn themes that's worth spending time admiring and being moved by.

If you know Kurosawa's Ikiru, the only fundamental difference, aside from the location, is that the audience is informed about the stomach cancer from the very opening shot whereas Living makes us wait until Williams visits a very concerned doctor. The two films are, as you might imagine, very similar. Adapted for its London setting by acclaimed novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, Living also serves as a snapshot of a post-war country and how conformity and knowing your place were just the English way, hanging on in quiet desperation as Roger Waters may have sang. In fact the lyric of Time from The Dark Side of the Moon could almost be describing Mr. Williams to a tee. The only bright spark in this office of über drudgery, Margaret notwithstanding, is the new boy Mr. Wakeling played by Alex Sharp. His character name gives you the tip that he's not been fully initiated into the somnambulant chute of monotonous paper-pushing. He has the uniform but he's also curious and a little gauche. He's a human being, being carefully nudged on to an officious treadmill. More importantly, Wakeling is our way in to the world and to Williams.

Where Living shines brightest is in the performances and character nuances. Nighy's performance is the highlight. You need serious charisma to act dead inside and make us care which he does with seemingly no effort. Nighy has always had a twinkle in his eye as a performer and for the first time has to contain or stifle it for the first part of the film. His scenes with Lou Wood are quiet gems of human interaction and well-earned and honest emotion. There are a few lovely accidents along the way, moments editors discover in the rushes, moments that lend any film some authenticity and spark. Williams twinges in pain from his cancer walking through a playground being built. Visible behind him as he winces are the flames from a fire behind him, an unintentional (perhaps) but welcome metaphor for the cancer flaring up inside him. As we are treated to a close up of fish and chips, editor Chris Wyatt cuts wide to Margaret holding up a chip which then droops and drops as she laughs. I'm not sure if it's God or the Devil in the detail but highlighting these moments enriches films enormously. Composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch (what a divine name) provides a fitting score which is minimalist in style and piano led beautifully played by presumably Ms. Levienaise-Farrouch herself. There's a yearning quality to it that underlines how far Williams has to go in so little time.

Living may be judged up against the illustrious original but if you are going to remake a classic to make this story available to a modern audience, then I can think of few better ways to produce it. And one more thing. The cinema wasn't full but those of us there were all older people and the experience of sharing a film like this in that context is very moving.

* https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2022/11/living-director-oliver-hermanus-exclusive-interview/