Living

Showtimes March 6 - 9:

Academy Award Nominee: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Bill Nighy)

Written by Kazuo Ishiguro, filmed by director Oliver Hermanus, and featuring a memorable performance from Bill Nighy, this elegant film is a small joy. A luscious and textured remake of Kurosawa’s 1952 classic Ikiru, it tells the story of a British bureaucrat who finds a way to leave his mark on the world.  

Mr. Williams (Nighy) is a stooped, unsmiling man who carries an umbrella even when the weather’s fine, and whose voice recalls the dryness of a dusty pile of papers. One of an endless parade of commuters in dark suits and hats, he’s a longtime civil servant in a London office where his job mostly consists of putting file folders into endless stacks and shuffling people off if they want something done. A widower, he lives with his son and daughter-in-law in a suburban house where nothing seems to have changed for years. Yet everything changes when he is told that he has little time to live. Realizing that he isn’t facing death, he’s been living it, he begins putting work aside for new experiences. After toying a bit with debauchery, and with gazing into the doe eyes of a charming former co-worker, he settles on just one thing he can do – leave the world with something to remember him by. It’s a small thing, but it’s perfect. As charming as it is gorgeous to watch, Living creates a tiny world to get lost in, one whose faces and shadows and sunlight linger with you, even after you’ve returned to your own.

(UK / 2022 / Directed by Oliver Hermanus)
PG-13 / 1 hr 42 mins