Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Director: Oliver Hermanus
Quick Impressions:
“That’s my new favorite movie this year,” my husband gushed excitedly as we walked out into the parking lot. “I want Bill Nighy to win Best Actor.”
“He won’t,” I sighed, shaking my head, “but I loved that performance, too.”
I could stop right there. Both my husband and I loved Living so much that I intend to watch the original Kurosawa film Ikuru. This film was fantastic, genuinely moving, edifying, offering life advice I desperately want every movie to give me these days. (But they usually don’t. At best, they might say, “Try to have an uncle in the circus and become Steven Spielberg.”) (Good advice. It works if you can do it. Probably not for everyone. The rest of us can buy a monkey and hope for brilliant kids, I guess.)
This was a beautiful, deeply meaningful film. We both cried through the whole thing.
It could only have been better if the adorable dog briefly sitting in a purse next to me had stayed to watch the movie. But, alas, I think his human realized after about five minutes we couldn’t possibly be watching 80 for Brady, and she had wandered into the wrong auditorium.
(Their departure is probably for the best. At first, I was thinking, “Really? Someone is sitting right next to me at the last second in this vastly empty auditorium?” But then the dog popped up, and suddenly, I couldn’t stop wondering, “Would it be rude to offer this dog some popcorn? Would it be even ruder not to?” So I’m sure the absence of the adorable surprise dog helped me focus more intently on Bill Nighy’s Oscar nominated performance.)
The Good:
I expected something different from this movie. (I like to go in as cold as possible, so I can react to what I see first, then do any research later.) I thought Bill Nighy’s Williams would learn he was dying and decide to live out his final months in a more exciting way. Maybe he would travel around the world and gradually loosen up on a series of madcap adventures. I expected that because I could so easily picture Bill Nighy playing that type of character. First he’s grim and dour and as dull as a 1950s British civil servant can be, and then he slowly morphs into this lively, zany guy. That’s not at all what this movie gives us. What Living offers is so much more substantial, edifying.
I don’t want to spoil it, but Living genuinely inspired me. For most of 2022, I felt out of touch with movies. They’re less pleasurable if you walk into the auditorium plagued by a voice that incessantly demands, “What is the meaning of life, and what should I do?” That’s a pretty big question for a Saturday matinee, you know?
But in this movie, Mr. Williams is asking the same questions, and he finds the answers! So it’s extremely satisfying. He finds good answers, too. As you watch, you know (without any doubt) that’s he’s found the right answer.
I found the movie’s profound moral goodness as refreshing as it was surprising. When my husband and I were engaged, I read several books with titles like, Bonding with Your Stepchild. They were all overwhelming and demoralizing. They said things like, “No matter what you do, your stepchild will always resent you.” Then I talked to a priest who told me, “Get down on the floor and play with him. Engage with him.” That practical advice was much more helpful. And the kind of epiphany Williams has in this film is of a similar nature.
If you’re into Aristotle and believe the end of life is happiness, the question of how to achieve that end becomes much more pressing when you’re also facing the end of your life. The contrast between the simplicity of the solution Mr. Williams finds and the intensity of the uplifting feeling this brings to everyone (Williams, other characters, the audience) reveals that he’s stumbled onto profound truth.
It’s easy to imagine Living as a children’s picture book, the kind I used to check out from the library to read to my son. It would have captivating illustrations that immerse us in the bowler-hatty world of 1950s London. And the text would give us phrases like, “But Mr. Williams didn’t find the secret to living at the seaside,” or, “‘This hat does not make me happy,’ Mr. Williams decided. ‘I like this hat, but wearing it does not make me feel like I am really living,’” or, “So Mr. Williams sat on the bench waiting for happiness to come by. He sat and he sat…” Picture books that are actually from the 1950s are a lot like this. (“So every time the young policeman watches the children laughing on the swing, he thinks of Mr. Williams.”) (I’m imagining the illustrations from Make Way for Ducklings. That was published in 1941, but it has great pictures. The art style would fit this story. (I wish my son would still let me read him picture books.)
You know what else this movie reminds me of? That segment from Paris, je t’aime where the man is about to break up with his wife, but he learns she’s dying of cancer, so he stays and falls in love with her all over again, and then her death crushes him. I think it’s “Bastille.” This movie has that same kind of vibe.
Watching made me extremely glad I married my husband. (He’s such a profoundly good man! Of course this is his favorite movie! I wish I could be half as good. That’s why I married him. He’s so pure hearted. He’s always like, “You know what I love?” and then it’s some beautiful thing like this. So much has happened over the past couple of days. I got in a car wreck. I guess that’s one thing. It felt like a lot. But he keeps saying, “I love that movie so much! That was such a good movie!”)
This story has such a moral center, and it offers us a virtuous path that surely every human being can appreciate. (Honestly, I think the dog probably would have liked it, too. It’s very wholesome.) The kind of revelation Mr. Williams experiences isn’t tied to any particular religion or philosophy (necessarily). I can’t imagine how anyone could watch this and scoff, “What a terrible idea! He got everything all wrong!” (Well, maybe that lady from the restaurant would react that way. Living gave me a deep upswelling of love for all of humanity—except that woman. Even if her suspicions were correct, so what? And when we see her again, has she followed them there on purpose? My husband and I were so annoyed by that character. She’s in the wrong movie. This is the 1950s, not 1984.)
Bill Nighy is Oscar worthy, as I’ve said, and Aimee Lou Wood makes such a vivacious Miss Harris. My husband and I had the same reaction early in the film when we learned Miss Harris would be leaving the public works office. We thought regretfully, “But she’s so full of life!” We were so sad at the prospect of her departure. (And we don’t even work there! In fact, at the time, I expected the movie to shift away from the office more radically than it does, and yet I felt this wistful regret that Miss Harris would be leaving. Even if we never came back to the office, anyway, I felt it would be impoverished for her loss. Of course, at the same time, I also thought, “She needs to go work in that department store in Are You Being Served? She seems like she’d fit in better over there and have more fun.”)
Alex Sharp is also pretty engaging as Mr. Wakeling. I slowly realized, “This film can’t just be about Mr. Williams leaving the office behind, or surely we wouldn’t spend so much time following Mr. Wakeling all around the building. I’m really getting sad about this playground project and frustrated for these likeable women. This movie is spending an awful lot of time on this.” (I should have realized sooner what kind of story we would get from this “A Christmas Carol” like set up. It’s quite well done. When Mr. Williams makes some shocking decisions late in the film, the audience isn’t shocked. We already agree with him. We’ve already come to the same conclusions ourselves, without even giving them much conscious thought.)
I feel so sorry for Williams’s son, Michael (Barney Fishwick) who gets a heart-breaking moment late in the story. Throughout the film, I kept feeling Williams’s suffering so acutely (especially when it came to Michael), and then asking myself, “Why don’t you spend more time with your own father?” I hardly see him since he moved out.
Best Scene:
Mr. Williams’s confession to Miss Harris in the pub is so moving. I’m not sure why Bill Nighy isn’t considered a serious contender for the Oscar. Without being particularly showy, he meditates on the reality of his illness and the inadequacies of his life in such a heartfelt way. The power of the performance sneaks up on you. Without even thinking through my emotions consciously, I found tears in my eyes again and again.
Best Scene Visually:
My husband was so impressed by the final image of the swing, still moving back and forth. I think that’s a nice contrast to all the shots of railroads (and other public works) we get in the beginning. (I had the sense that none of those things were moving—in an erratic, kinetic way caused by human interference—but I need to watch the first few minutes of the film again more carefully because, I’ll confess, I was distracted by that cute dog. My impression is that the early shots give us lines crossing other lines, things moving along the lines, rigidly (like the train on tracks). The motion of the swing is very different. It’s a human presence that makes it move like that.
Best Action Sequence:
I find Mr. Williams’s first, unsuccessful stab at living rather bleakly amusing. He finds someone going on at length about how miserable he is and then enlists his help in having a good time. This character, Sutherland (played by Tom Burke) offers to take him to all the most fun places he frequents. (But remember, he’s chronically miserable.) I enjoyed watching this section of the movie unfold, especially because Williams’s plight brings out the kindness and humanity in not just Sutherland, but in practically all the characters he encounters. They don’t have much to offer him. They don’t know how to help him. And he doesn’t know what he wants from them. He’s seeking, not finding.
Still in these scenes, the film shows us you don’t necessarily need to be happy to be alive. The Sutherland character is genuinely kind to Mr. Williams and moved by his distress. He tries to help him. His actions say, “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to be happy either, but I will be unhappy with you.” Unhappiness is also living, and were he to die in any of the places where Sutherland takes him, Williams would still be better off than he was sitting alone on the couch. The people around him give him as much kindness as they can spare.
I do love the moment when he performs his song in the pub. It’s so moving, especially as Nighy sings out with increasing vocal power as Williams feels the poignant resonance of his memories.
The Negatives:
I’m not sure I’m thrilled with the film’s structure. All the hopping back and forth in time at the end is a bit jarring because we don’t do that in the beginning. It’s like we’re watching a film that suddenly realizes it’s a mystery about three-fourths of the way through. It all feels a little contrived and stagey at the end. Still, I won’t deny it (kind of) works. (I also can’t deny that I felt a rush of pleasure to realize, “Mr. Williams is back!”) (I don’t want to spoil the movie. I do think it’s interesting that up to a certain point, we see Mr. Williams directly, but then after that, we suddenly have a series of narrators recalling things. I don’t see how I can possibly say more about this without spoilers. The premise of the movie isn’t exactly cagey about certain points, but I’ll still be careful.)
I was touched by Living. When my children were little, so often I’d remember my grandpa and think, “You’re immortal when you spend time with a child,” because he spent so much time playing with me, and I’ve never forgotten. I watch Mr. Williams, and I think of my grandpa, of Alex Trebek. (It’s odd that he pops in there since I only spent a few hours in his presence. But that encounter is weirdly out of time for me, like it happened in eternity. It’s filed away with things like my honeymoon, brief events that feel like an age.) Watching Mr. Williams, I thought of all my dead loved ones, and even of other people’s dead loved ones. (Don’t ask me how I managed that!) I was even thinking of wise people who are alive but just very tired. I have this unfaltering sense that if I truly appreciate the lessons these people taught me, then I need to do something myself that will add value to the world. That’s where I struggle. I can appreciate the beauty of this film, but that’s useless, isn’t it? What kind of person drifts around appreciating the beauty of things? Shouldn’t I be out building a playground?
I like the feeling I got from this movie, and I wish I could give that feeling to others. But I can’t do it through public works projects. That’s not where my gifts lie. Truly, I wish I had fewer limitations. I tend to view my limitations as mistakes or moral failings. But there’s a part of me that always insists, “If you’re serious about wanting to accomplish something, you should not rest until it’s finished.” That only works if the thing you want to accomplish happens to be having a manic episode. (Actually, it doesn’t even work then! Deliberately trying to trigger mania because you could use the energy boost usually just worsens depression.) (Full disclosure: I am not qualified to dispense medical advice.)
I don’t know. I say to myself, “I’m going to be a normal, virtuous person and force myself to wake up early in the morning.” So I do force myself to wake up early in the morning. And you know what that makes me? Tired.
Living is the kind of film that makes me dwell on my own inadequacies as a human. (Most films make me dwell on my inadequacies as a writer!) I appreciate the, “When in doubt, do something,” idea because lately I’m always mired in doubt. And doing something is better than doing nothing. Ideally, we should always do something that helps other people. And it’s good to be a part of something, to make a difference, even if it’s only a small difference.
Of course, Mr. Williams is only able to achieve what he does by first spending so many monotonous years building a career in public service. If he hadn’t devoted his life to rising through the ranks, he wouldn’t have the influence to help anyone. (So dreary, seemingly unfulfilling monotony is a part of living, too, I guess.) It’s not as if Mr. Williams just wakes up one morning, decides to make a difference, and does. Until he takes an interest in the building project, no one is able to get the project off the ground. It only works because of the decades of public service behind his sudden investment. He could be just as emotionally invested but not have the station he does, and his enthusiasm would accomplish nothing.
Here’s the problem I have. Why should I watch this movie? Shouldn’t I use my time to create something worthwhile instead? Why should I write about a movie I’ve seen? I do it because until I compose my thoughts in writing, I don’t know what they are myself. I enjoy experiencing movies (or any form of fiction). And I enjoy mentally revisiting films I’ve seen, particularly to think about why the narrative components work (or don’t). But watching movies and writing about them takes time. Shouldn’t all free time be used productively? There’s so little of it and so much to do.
You know what, though, my time and energy would be better spent watching Living a second time than continuing to ramble on about my uncertainties because watching a good film brings joy, like staring at the majesty of a waterfall, or reflecting on Jeopardy! I wish I could convey in words the experience I’d love to share. (I’m working on it!)
(I just sighed to my husband, “Can I read you this movie review? I’ve been writing it for so long, and I don’t even know what it says! I’ve been writing it for two days! I delete every other paragraph. I should have started before the car accident. I should have just drawn a picture of that dog instead!”) (He comments, “You watching and enjoying the movie brings meaning to what the filmmakers have done.”) (That’s making me feel so guilty. He said, “What if the filmmakers somehow read this and are glad someone enjoyed their movies?” So now I feel like, “Oh God! I’m misdirecting all my energies. I should be writing to people who might read what I say.” Oh well! It’s a good film!)
Overall:
You know one of the best things about Living? It’s quiet, and yet it has something to say. Bill Nighy is fantastic as Mr. Williams. I’d be happy to see him win Best Actor, and I hope I meet that little dog again, too.