Rating: 8.0
Premise: In 1950s London, a humorless civil servant decides to take time off work to experience life after receiving a grim diagnosis.
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Sony Pictures Classics
Directed by Oliver Hermanus
Written by Kazuo Ishiguro
Based on the film “Ikiru” by Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke
Runtime: 1hr 42min
Rating: PG
Drama
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IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%
RT Audience Score: 86%
RT Critic Average: 8/10
RT Audience Average: 4.3/5
Metacritic Score: 81
Letterboxd: 3.6/5
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My Rating:
“Living” is a gentle, yet exquisitely sad film. It’s a good little film, well made, well acted, with an especially good message. The film tells a very simple story about an old man who finds out he is going to die, and decides to try and experience as much of life as he can before his time is up. We’ve seen this story done many times before, and this isn’t the most unique of the bunch, but it is quite good. It may not reach the same heights as Akira Kurosawa’s original film “Ikiru”, but there is still lots of heart and care put into it, making this a worthwhile remake.
The clear highlight of the film is Bill Nighy’s excellently subtle and nuanced performance. I have loved Nighy for many years, from his role as Davy Jones in “Pirates of the Caribbean” to “Love Actually” to his appearances in Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy, and was thrilled to see him turn in one of his best performances in this film. He really is amazing at conveying his thoughts and emotions without any dialogue, there were so many moments in this film where a simple glance from him could tell you so much about his character. But, contrary to awards discussions, he wasn’t the only actor who delivered a great performance in the film; Aimee Lou Wood was also really fantastic and honestly became more of a highlight in the film than Nighy at times!
What was also really interesting to me was that the film looked like it was made in the 50s. The production design team, directors, cinematographers and editors all did their best to replicate the look of a 50s film, from the sets and costumes, to the onscreen titles, to the aspect ratio, shooting style, lighting and film grain. I really did appreciate that about the film, and it really did feel like it could have been a 50s film (which “Ikiru” was.)
The film is good all around. It’s a hard one to critique, because nothing was bad at all, but nothing really stood out as phenomenal besides some performances. It’s just a solid, good movie, with a beautiful message about living life to the fullest! Sometimes we don’t need a big action movie to entertain us, sometimes all we need is a quiet, lovely drama about a man re-discovering what life is really about. And I really liked that.
Fun Fact: Kazuo Ishiguro had dreamed of doing a remake of Ikiru (1952) in English with Bill Nighy for many years. One night, he and his wife ended up sharing a cab with Nighy after a party, and he pitched the idea. Nighy had never seen Ikiru, but once he watched it, he enthusiastically signed on to the project.
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