Living (2022) film review

Living (2022)

 A masterclass in emotive understatement from Bill Nighy as this elegant feature may seem cliche to some but is full of ean motive truism for the time as a suitable stablemate in afternoon matinee viewing in the remains of the day.

There was a sting in the late ’90s. Just after graduating and making my way as a first job temp, I found myself working in the department of Transport office. Insurance and petrol were the two main issues, as were collision reports. There were files and crocodile clips. Department transfers. Interdepartmental transfers and many other bureaucratic moments of absurdity and negligence. I made the mistake of being outwardly amused once. Brian, an older man with a thing for saucy postcards and bad wigs, often chastised me for them while eating his crisp sandwiches.

But in essence. The lethargy and fatalism of ll had probably not moved on from Brian’s first day. Wh, which is quite possibly where we start the film.

Bill Nighy Plays Mr.Williams. A senior clerk within the civil service of the post-poperiodiod of 1953. While decorum and hierarchy are at the forefront of any interaction, this is eroded slowly as we accompany him to his doctor, where he discovers the results and the prognosis within a year.

We follow his journey and learn so much, with very little said about his personal and professional life until this point. The terse conversations between him, his son, and daughter in law soon after this leads to the excellent communication of no communication. A dinner table where no words are said, yet everyone’s feelings are placed bare on the table to the point that slapstick punctures the melancholy at such a great key.

Gallows humour is not so much the journey as a certain melancholy acceptance as Mr.Williams goes through various stages of getting his personal affairs in order. Encouraging and inspiring others to live in a way he never really got to.

The film is simple and lean. Our cast is family and coworkers. There is no flashback to his past; he is simply a man trying to make a future while he has one.

Even the outcome at the end shows he is not even searching for a legacy so much as a sense of accomplishment. 

With a screenplay by Kazuro Ishiguro, it fits neatly into the reality we see in his other work. While I have not seen Ikiru, I can’t say how much it differs from the source.

The film could have easily been made at the time without the camera’s resolution. While the locations are sparse, the detail is sumptuous. The acting across the board is archetypal without being too superficial, as the sense of social restraint is the order of the day more than simple vapidity for the cast. 

With an impassioned plea at places, Nighy manages metamorphoses with his character, from Mr. zombie to a man of agency without any of the jekyll and hyde cliches we often see in movies.

The audience was mature, and the film was intricate and meditative. Many may find romances and office bureaucracy cliched. I feel the film had a beating heart in the center and was more about affirmations and truisms. In bleak times, it’s reassuring to have reaffirmed.

A perfect Sunday matinee.