Living

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From The Booth

"In this exquisitely realized remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru, director Oliver Hermanus teams with Nobel- and Booker Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro to renew a classic. Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy) is a buttoned-down, stereotypical English gentleman in 1952, with a mid-level bureaucratic job in a postwar London county council. Through his taciturn manner, Mr. Williams lets his staff know that maintaining the status quo on files is more important than progress.

"One day Williams receives a dire diagnosis from his doctor and soon the tightly held reins of his very prosaic life begin to loosen...Williams realizes that he isn’t facing death; he’s been living it. And so, in the clumsy manner of one who is unpracticed in these things, he begins putting work aside for new experiences." - Jane Schoettle, TIFF 2022.

"In Living, Mr. Nighy excels again in a performance that is magnificent in its restraint and eloquent in its sparseness of words." - Wall Street Journal.

"Living is not a big movie, despite the pedigree of its creators. But it is an artistically masterful one—a-kind film that, while deceptively simple, may linger in your mind for years to come." - AV Club.

"Throughout, Bill Nighy carries the film effortlessly on his slender shoulders, reminding us of why he’s an international treasure." - Chicago Sun-Times.

Nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.