Review: Living

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

It's usually a losing game adapting an already great work from a master artist - see, for example, the numerous remakes of classic horror films or the 1983 American version of "Breathless." But this latest instance - Oliver Hermanus' "Living" - is an example of how to do it right. It adheres to the original material - but is adapted by the great novelist Kazuo Ishiguro - while allowing the material to breathe by not being so beholden to the source that it doesn't have a life of its own. 

In this case, the great film being adapted is the 1952 humanist masterpiece "Ikiru (To Live)," which was one of the greatest works of Akira Kurosawa. In that film, a stuffy Japanese office manager, realizing that he has a short time to live after being diagnosed with being in the final stages of a deadly disease, decides to do something that matters, much to the amazement and confusion of his fellow workers.

In this new film, the story has been transported to post-World War II London and the action is set in an office that grants permits - or, as appears to be the case, doesn't grant them. Bill Nighy - in one of his finest performances - plays Mr. Williams, who sits quietly and does his work and mostly deters his fellow coworkers from attempting to strike up a conversation.

Although not unpleasant, he's stiff, so much so that a young woman in the office has dubbed him "Mr. Zombie," although to be fair she has names for everyone. Williams has been doing what he's been doing at the office seemingly for decades. He notes that he once had a lust for life and wanted to be a "gentleman," but he's allowed life to pass him by.

The film's point of view occasionally shifts - sometimes it's Williams; other times it is Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood), the female employee whom he later befriends; and often it's Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp), a new employee in the office who's still fresh faced and hasn't faced enough life challenges to make him bitter as many of the other workers in the office appear to be.

Similar to "Ikiru," Williams gets the bad diagnosis and sets out to make something of the time he has left. This includes befriending Margaret and writing her a good recommendation for a job she's seeking, getting drunk at pubs and singing wistful Scottish songs and, most importantly, becoming the driving forced behind a permit submitted by a group of women to build a playground at a derelict site.

We get the sense that the playground project is the type that Williams would have buried in the past because it will cause a lot of mustering of energy. But he throws himself into the project with conviction, even convincing the other members of his office to do the same. But it's later when the dust has settled - and the vows to follow Williams' example have been forgotten - that the film's most poignant sequence occurs. It's the scene that ends "Ikiru" and here it's told through a lovely anecdote between a beat cop and Peter, who happens to walk past the playground that he played a small role in getting built.

"Living" may not live up to "Ikiru," and it's a daunting task existing in Kurosawa's shadow, I must image. But it's an often lovely film - and I mean that literally, especially during the early sequences in which the picture mimics 1950s-era cinematography and due to some gorgeous lighting throughout - that features a very good performance at its center (Nighy was rightfully recognized for his work last week during the announcement of the Oscar nominees).  

The film could be described as old fashioned - but this is meant appreciatively, rather than disparagingly. For a movie that remakes one of the all-time classics, it's surprisingly good.