Living

Now I am not usually a particular fan of Bill Nighy but in this he is very much at the top of his game. An adaptation of Kurosawa's "Ikuru" (1952), the setting is shifted to London where Nighy is the fastidious "Mr. Williams". A local civil servant heading up the public works department of the London County Council. His small team has some new blood in the form of "Mr. Wakeling" (Alex Sharp) whose baptism in the department is to accompany three ladies (and the audience) on a revelative journey through the pillar-to-post red tape that "Williams" himself facilitates - all guaranteeing that very little actually ever gets done! Leaving early one day, we discover that this erstwhile precise and predictable individual is seriously ill. Unable and...

This is one of the better quiet movies, as I call them, that I have watched in a long time. Bill Nighy seems to excel in restrained roles, where he speaks quietly and shows emotion subtly. I am thinking especially of The Girl in the Cafe, where he oddly enough also plays a civil servant.

Nighy is wonderful and methodical (in a good way) as a man who is thawing out from a repetitious, paralyzed life after he receives life-altering news. He even impresses when he sings a song in the same quiet, restrained manner.

A flashback is applied in an odd way nearer the end of the movie, but it works as an imaginative way to fill in the details of the ending.

I fully expect to watch this again.