Living
A life of quiet desperation gets loud as it comes to an end
Bill Nighy offers an exceptional performance as a civil servant pondering the worth of a civil life in director Oliver Hermanus' Living.
Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy) has a routine. He dons his suit and bowler hat and waits at the train station. There, he nods to the car full of his underlings but doesn’t sit with them. When the train arrives at their London stop, they all walk in silence to their office at the city’s County Hall.
There, the silence becomes oppressive. Williams and his underlings push their papers, filing things and passing notices and applications between departments. It’s a horrendous merry-go-round, and the women who show up every day hoping to start a playground in an abandoned lot are growing frustrated.
But Mr. Williams keeps the merry-go-round going, lulled into passivity by his routine and the silence it brings. So, it comes as a shock to him when his physician informs him that he’s got terminal cancer. Suddenly the silence seems oppressive and the routine seems unbearable. He begins to look at his life and ponder his relationships.
Can a quiet life have worth? And can Williams make the most of his last months on Earth?
A remake of Akira Kurosawa’s underrated classic Ikiru, Living is an understated film about how easy it is to fall into a cycle of banality, and how difficult it is to break it. Both films are based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, which picks at the quiet desperation of an unremarkable life, examining what it means to truly live.
On the surface, not much happens in Living. This is very much a movie about what you don’t see. Instead of big dramatic moments, this movie lives in the hushed moments. Williams never becomes a gregarious life-embracing caricature (Looking at you, Tom Hanks), but his entrenched civil servant burns with a wordless need to do something lasting before he dies.
Nighy is absolutely brilliant as Williams, a man whose carefully curated world has just cracked in half. His impulse is to act out, but after years of repression, carefree debauchery doesn’t feel right. He looks instead for meaning, wondering if his short time life is enough time to make an impact on the world. Nighy’s performance is a study in subtle acting, each tick of his mouth or raising of an eyebrow is a wave of emotion. Williams would seem blank with a lesser actor, but Nighy imbues every moment with a simmering sense of dread and desperation. His Williams is close to James Joyce’s Leopold Bloom, his calm exterior hiding the roils of emotions he’s grappling with inside.
Director Oliver Hermanus pairs Nighy’s understated performance with a classic film aesthetic. He and cinematographer Jamie Ramsay transition the film from white, stark colors to the candy-colored palette of a 1950s Douglas Sirk melodrama. As Williams realizes how bleak his existence has been, the whole film begins to brim with color and character.
But a bright color scheme doesn’t mean that Living possesses a sunny outlook. Hermanus carefully shows us how easy it is to sink into apathy in life. Though Williams strives for purpose at the end of his life, he recognizes that his impact can and will be fleeting. His real change in the world may be trying to impart that message to his underlings.
Though the film is unquestionably Nighy’s, he is supported by a lovely performance from Aimee Lou Wood as Margaret. As a woman working in the County Hall, she’s the one pop of humor and color in Williams’ world. Her kindness and dreams offer a respite from Williams’ desolate existence.
Living isn’t a movie that bombards you with drama or action — there’s nary a jet plane or a shoot-out to be seen — but it may have a more lasting impact on those who watch it. It’s a call to arms, and a pleading to find meaning in life before it’s too late.
Verdict: A flawless performance from Nighy grounds this carefully observed drama.
Living is rated PG-13 and is available in theaters.
