Living

Director: Oliver Hermanus
Starring: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Tom Burke, Alex Sharp
Distributor: Transmission Films
Runtime: 102 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2023
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan

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Rating notes: Mild themes, sexualised imagery, and infrequent coarse language

This British drama tells the story of a senior bureaucrat working in London, who reassesses his life after learning he has a fatal Illness.

The film is adapted from the 1952 film Ikiru – which means ‘to live’ in Japanese. That film was inspired in turn by the Russian novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. The movie was rated as one of the 10 top Independent films of 2022 by the National Board of Review. Nighy was awarded Actor of the year in 2023 by London Film Critics for his performance in a leading role, and he has been nominated for an Oscar in 2023 as leading male actor in a motion picture.

Rodney Williams (Nighy) is an austere London Council bureaucrat who heads up a Public Works department in the 1950s with years of oppressive, routine work behind him. London is struggling to rebuild after the traumas of WWII, and Rodney is both feared and respected by his employees. One day, he unexpectedly receives a terminal cancer diagnosis from his doctor following what he thought would be a routine visit. He learns that he has only months to live, and considers taking a lethal number of sleeping tablets. He changes his mind, and gives them to an insomniac writer, Sutherland (Burke), who he meets in a restaurant. After a night out to try to live more spontaneously, he becomes acutely aware that time is running out for him.

Rodney is forced to confront his own mortality, and gains unexpected emotional support from a young woman, Margaret Harris (Wood), whom he knew as a former colleague. She has a vivacious personality and Rodney establishes a touching friendship. Wood’s acting is an excellent foil to the subtlety of Nighy’s performance.

Rodney takes on a project – building a playground – that will help local mothers. He astonishes his colleagues with a deep and new-found desire to help people. The medical diagnosis has given him a feeling of rebirth. The playground, with its roundabout and swing – moving freely, with no restraint – symbolises a positive attempt to ‘live’ afresh. The metaphor is complex, but it turns the film into a gentle, sad and emotional experience. Mortality is the enemy of us all, the film says, and the human challenge is to stay ‘alive’. Rodney reconstructs his life to leave a positive legacy.

Nighy’s performance as Rodney delivers an impressive piece of understated acting. The film moves slowly and then picks up pace as the poignancy of Nighy’s performance makes its impact. This is a film about dying that is humane, dignified and edifying, and the film closes with Rodney’s colleagues voicing (quite uncharacteristically) the need to behave humanely and responsibly.

Hermanus’ direction weaves intimate and personal scenes, and lets the humanity of the characters shine through. Living asserts the value of caring for others, and motivates viewers to make sure that every moment in being alive counts. The film’s cinematography reflects the director’s intent by reinforcing the impact of the movie’s dialogue with creative use of camera-work. Dramatic moments are subtly integrated into the movie.

This is a film that urges viewers to reflect on the meaning and purposes of life. Rodney has deep regrets about a life he knows he has not spent well. The film shows the reasons why that is so, and creatively explores a dying man’s resolve to ‘live’ again. It starkly contrasts the suffocating officialdom that controls spontaneity and stifles human caring, and points the viewer toward the personal rewards to be experienced by ‘grasping life afresh’ and ‘thinking again’.