Living: Neon NZ Review

Cast: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp

Director: Oliver Hermanus

An adaptation of the 1952 Japanese film Ikiru, and blessed with an almost melancholy and ghost-like performance from Nighy, Living's subtle pleasures come from a story washing over its audience adjusting to its rhythms.

Opening with a 4x3 aspect ratio and sequences of bowler-hatted worker drones catching the train to their London offices, Hermanus delivers an England struggling to recover in the face of the second World War. Bowing to tradition, the film follows the story of Nighy's civil servant Mr Williams, the head of a Council hall team aimed at holding people up in red tape and bureaucracy.

Given a terminal cancer diagnosis, Williams goes AWOL from his routine, determined to suddenly shake himself out of his ennui and zombie-like state. Finding a friend in a former office colleague (played by Sex Education's Lou Wood), Williams tries to live out his final days in ways he should have embraced earlier in his life.

"If only to be alive like that for day" may be one of the sentiments espoused by Williams, but it's also the film's winsome message, aimed at making us all reflect on lives gone past and time spent in the present.

Yet there's melancholy a-plenty here and sadness lurking in more than just Nighy's terrifically nuanced performance. Whether it's the newcomer to the County Hall office wondering if the bureaucracy and delays proffered to the people should be his future, the beleaguered writer who delights in debauchery unable to find his muse or the lively companion who brings Williams out of his state, there's plenty of commentary here on how Brits live (or didn't) after two World Wars.

Hermanus crafts a film that takes its time to sink in, but allows the quiet moments to soar and his star to rightfully claim an Oscar nomination as best actor.

Nighy's rarely been this commanding in a role, ironically one which requires a softer edge and an emotional turn for a man whose life has been lived doing what he's supposed to, but not what he ought to. It's a subtle difference and one which Hermanus exploits well throughout this emotional, sensitively-handed and excellently helmed movie.