Review: If You Doubted The Greatness Of Bill Nighy, A Moving New Drama Offers ‘Living Proof

Shortly after "Life", Mr. Williams learns that he does not have much longer to live. The news didn't come as much of a shock, but even so, you see, nothing about the man—not his sturdy demeanor, not his calm grateful gaze, not his thin, flat face—would give anything away. Or what looks like devastation or even surprise. It's 1950s London, and Mr Williams, who has worked in the county's public works department for more than two decades, has kept himself in a shell of transparency, accepting each new document and file with impeccably poised and unwavering composure. Why should his response to his own disappearance be any different from six months to a year at the most?

It should be noted here that Mr. Williams is played by Bill Nye, for whom restraint is never an act of restraint. Within emotional parameters that other actors might find too restrictive, Nighy presents a tour de force of humiliation accompanied by an almost musical melancholy. His performance earned him the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor. Earlier this month, a beautiful little symphony of bowed glances and silent declarations, lit by the occasional faint ghost of laughter. Mr. Williams, ironically about the death penalty, which he keeps secret from all but a few confidants. In the film's best moments, Nai makes you feel like she's sharing a personal joke with you, a comedic take on a very sad situation.

At some point, you might look back on Love Is Real, especially one of Noir's funniest and most popular performances; "And now I'm nobody, shrinking and lonely." But Mr. Williams doesn't feel sorry for himself, and Living is thankfully not to be confused with Life Actually. Beautifully directed by Oliver Germanus from a quiet and elegant screenplay by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, the film is a faithful English-language remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1952 Ikiru. Tokyo Widow is about a widow diagnosed with stomach cancer. Open an unexpected new page.

An emotional epic among Kurosawa's more radical classics (it was made after Rashomon and just before Seven Samurai), Ikiru remains so revered that the mere thought of a remake screams apostasy. But it is also, like many of Kurosawa's films, a culturally penetrating, endlessly adaptable story. (Ikiru itself is taken from Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich. The lessons about the limitations of existence and the beauty of living for others are universal, as can be said of his indictment of state bureaucracy.

Live, this bureaucracy was transported to post-war London and imagined as a sea of ​​pinstriped gray suits and bowler hats, criss-crossing wooden panels and marble staircases up and down. Thanks to Sandy Powell's impeccable costuming, Helen Scott's polished designs and Jamie's deep colors and crisp cinematography, this is an almost playful look at the monotony of the work. Ramsey: Our first impression of the place and mr. Williams himself comes from public works recruit Peter Wakeling (the excellent Alex Sharpe). His cheerful disposition and idealistic spirit are quickly softened by the realization of the demands of their work, so to speak.

The building is an orderly monument to inefficiency, where papers are neatly stored and shuffled, and anyone who requires personal assistance is immediately directed to the next department. Like Ikiru's government satire, the series of napkins used here (edited by Chris Watt) follows a group of women on an unsuccessful and frustrating quest to find the bomb in a converted playground. But Ishigura also tidies up the material and polishes off some of its harshness, according to a sensibility that seems guided by English's inherent (or perhaps formulated) restraint. In Ikiru, a doctor lies to his terminally ill patients, claiming they only have ulcers; In "Zhivim" they announce bad news and appeal with the stiffest lips.

It makes for a shorter story (40 minutes less than the original), though it may seem a little muted and too limited to those who have seen Ikiru, since it's mr. Williams in search of existential answers. . . He leaves the office, where he never misses a day without his colleagues or his steadfast son (Bernie Fishwick) and daughter-in-law (Passie Ferron). His chance encounter with a pleasure-seeker (Tom Burke) is amusing enough, though their visit to an arcade and nightclub is certainly lacking in excitement or danger. More exciting mr. Williams' moments with soon-to-be-ex-colleague Margaret Harris (a charming Amy Lou Wood), whose warmth and good humor make her perfectly believable, should be given a chance.

Their tender relationship is one of the story's joys, a reminder that the gradual bond between near strangers—sincere and unbreakable—can be the easiest and most powerful thing to watch on film. Their encounters never cross the lines of polite fantasy, which is pretty much everything in The Living, including death. In Ikiru, the great Takashi Shimura conveys his character's desperation with large, wide eyes and a sly gaze. Noah emerges from a more mysterious, almost underground crisis and mr. Williams:

This can make the film more anemic than it seems, as if it's a story about the meaning of life with hardly any life running through its veins. But Life can never match, or try to match, the solidity and density of Kurosawa's masterpiece, knowing that sobriety can be deceptive, that it can hide deep depths and resonate with the senses. Ishigura, who is aware of the subtle interplay of Japanese and English sensibilities, has mastered the art of such disguise in his fiction, particularly his famous novel The Remains of the Day. Hermanus, the South African filmmaker known for his tense and powerful dramas about gay desire ("Beauty," "Mophie"), takes a similar tack when it comes to dramatizing oppression.

Their economy is realized in the third act of "Life", which dramatically rearranges the last scenes of the story, without losing its impact and establishing its individual identity. For the sake of the film sir. Williams' example is somewhat admirable and unique in that the difference between an ordinary life and an extraordinary life can be measured only in very specific and substantial circumstances. It's human to pretend we're going to act the way our heroes act, and it's equally human to want to see and hear their stories.

Life on Stage S1 Episode 4: Bill Nye, Andrew Lincoln and Chiwetel Ejiofor "The Conversation NT"