I don't have time to get angry

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022

#18 : Living

Exquisitely sad drama starring Bill Nighy in a Kazuo Ishiguro-scripted remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru about a man dealing with a terminal diagnosis

We're jumping forward on the list because, wonder of wonders, the grown-ups got some child-free time with the telly and decided to watch a "proper" film and this felt like one that we'd both enjoy.  It was on my list to watch without even being ordered to by The Guardian because a man dealing with a terminal diagnosis in 50s Britain feels like a role that Bill Nighy was born to play.

It starts with some amusingly crowd and traffic free (except for buses) shots of London in the 50s and then we join a crowd of business men (all resplendent in bowler hats) on their way up to London for their days work.  Where they all squeeze into a very small office maintaining massive piles of bureaucratic forms, overseen in a very frosty manner by Mr Williams (Bill Nighy).  But then, horror of horrors, he announces that he has to LEAVE EARLY - what could possibly be the cause of such an earth-shattering incident?

Well, as you might guess from the above description, it's a trip to the doctor where he receives some bad news - and the rest of the film deals with how he decides to deal with that news and how others react to his decisions.  And that's pretty much all I'm going to tell you - the less you know, the better the film will be for you.  

Bill is, of course, excellent - how could he not be?  It's an excellent role for him to display his reserved charm with the sense that he's hiding something beneath the surface and he thoroughly deserved all the nominations he got - he didn't win all that many, but it's always pot luck and politics as to who actually wins these things.  He's very ably supported by a very capable cast, most of whom are buttoned down to display very little but I'm going to call out the rebels who are Aimee Lou Wood as Miss Harris (I wasn't previously aware of her but she's in Sex Education if you've seen that), Alex Sharp as Mr Wakeling and Tom Burke as Mr Sutherland (the first of THREE films we'll be seeing him in this year, but he's probably best known as Cormoron Strike).  I'm also going to mention Barney Fishwick who is heartbreakingly excellent as Michael, Bill's son, with them both being unable to talk to each other about anything and Patsy Ferran as Fiona, Michael's wife (who I saw on stage in this) who is extremely frustrated with both of them.

Mrs Reed's comment on the film was "it was nice, but nothing really happened" which I thought was odd because I thought quite a lot happened - and then I realised that she hasn't been watching a load of films where ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens, so I guess we just have very different expectations.  I'm also not sure whether very much actually happened in the 50s in Britain, so it's probably quite an action-packed film for the time.

However much happened, it all looked very nice - the retro feel was well imagined with some gorgeous shots of mid-century Britain (it seemed to snow a LOT back then) and lots of vintage cars were obtained from somewhere to populate some of the street scenes.  It was also well written in terms of the restrictive nature of society at the time - the work environment felt completely alien to me, but then I considered that if I explained my first work environment to my kids they'd struggle to understand it (and there's a similar time difference involved!).  It all feels very English though which is quite surprising given that it's an adaptation of a contemporary (for the time) Japanese film from 1952, which was in turn was based on a 1886 novella by Tolstoy.  I don't know if it was his idea, but Kazuo Ishiguro is to be congratulated on the excellent job he's done with this adaptation - it works really well.

One final comment I have is on The Guardian's description of this being "exquisitely sad" - it certainly has its sad moments but I found a lot of it to be quietly uplifting.  Each to their own, I guess.  This film didn't always do what I was expecting it to (and was all the better for it) but it is beautifully staged and acted, had a very strong central performance and a very satisfying ending.  What more do you want?  At the time of writing, it's available to stream on Amazon Prime or to rent in all the usual locations and I think it's well worth a watch (although some people might think it's a little light in action).

#19 - I really liked this
#17 - An odd film