Living (2022)

[SeanC]

Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro fulfills a longstanding desire to remake Akira Kurosawa's 1952 classic Ikiru, transferring the setting to England in the same timeframe, with Bill Nighy inheriting Takashi Shimura's lead role as a jaded civil servant jolted out of his staid existence by a cancer diagnosis.

The transferred social context is an obvious fit for Ishiguro, given there are some similarities to The Remains of the Day. Nighy, conversely, is playing a bit against the type audiences have come to expect from him, but he's also excellent. I was also really impressed by Aimee Lou Wood, in the role of his sympathetic subordinate. Tom Burke, from The Souvenir, also makes an impression.

[LADreamr]

I've been looking forward to this one, both for Nighy's acting, and Ishiguro's writing.

[StatisticalOutlier]

22 hours ago, SeanC said:

Tom Burke, from The Souvenir, also makes an impression.

Shallow, I know, but I just don't like his looks.  I think it's because he looks just like that guy C.T. from the Real World/Road Rules Challenge shows, and I always thought C.T. was singularly unattractive.  Didn't like Burke in The Souvenir, either, but that worked for me because his character wasn't likable in that one.

And I'm not familiar with Alex Sharp, who played Mr. Wakeling, but I kept seeing McLovin from Superbad. 

And finally, on looks, I really do enjoy Nighy's face.  And I know he was playing a dying man in this, but at my screening, they showed a trailer for the new Book Club movie, and I was wondering how far apart he and Jane Fonda are in age.  He's 12 years younger than her.  Someone hasn't been spending all his time at the plastic surgeon.

As for the movie, I very much enjoyed it.  I particularly loved the opening; I was wondering if I was in the wrong theater for a minute there.  I saw it on a Sunday afternoon and if two people hadn't come in 40 minutes late (the hell???), I would have had a private screening.  So if you're wanting to see it in a theater, it might be best to hustle up because I don't think it's going to be there long.

[Milburn Stone]

On 1/28/2023 at 7:00 PM, SeanC said:

The transferred social context is an obvious fit for Ishiguro, given there are some similarities to The Remains of the Day. Nighy, conversely, is playing a bit against the type audiences have come to expect from him, but he's also excellent. I was also really impressed by Aimee Lou Wood, in the role of his sympathetic subordinate. Tom Burke, from The Souvenir, also makes an impression.

I agree with you re those three actors' performances.

The Wakeling actor seemed a bit of a weak link but he redeemed himself in the final scene with the bobby.

Good movie (I'd give it 3 stars I guess) which could have been better if only it had resisted some obvious clichés. The trope where the character seems to be confronting someone, only for the audience to find out that he's merely rehearsing the confrontation--that stopped being a surprise about 5 decades ago. The device to show the audience the passage of time by showing one calendar page turning into another--that stopped being novel about 7 decades ago. Why? Why?