Movie Review: Bill Nighy is Oscar-Worthy in 'Living'

Living (2022)

Directed by Oliver Hermanus

Written by Kazuo Ishiguro

Starring Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke

Release Date December 25th, 2022

Published December 9th, 2022

Living stars Bill Nighy as Mr. Williams. His name is kept formal, MR. Williams, as a reflection of how he's lived his entire life by the standards of formality. Mr. Williams is the head of a non-descript Public Works office in a big English city, never identified. He's known among his employees as a quiet yet authoritative man. He manages the office efficiently, never makes waves, and just tries to keep his part of this bureaucracy from gaining any kind of attention.

Mr. Williams' arrival at work everyday is like clockwork, as is his end of the day routine. He rides the train to and from work but stays apart from his employees so as to maintain his authority. He appears to have done this job all his life without ever making much of any impact. Stacks of papers top every desk, each a request that Public Works kicks from one part of bureaucracy to another, as if their product were making sure nothing ever changes.

Naturally, the life of Mr. Williams is about to change drastically. In an uncharacteristic moment, Mr. Williams rises from his desk one day and announces that he will be leaving early. We will come to find out that this is due to a doctor's appointment. At this appointment, Mr. Williams is told that he has maybe six months to live. The following day, Mr. Williams' clockwork arrival at work doesn't happen. He tells no one and simply doesn't show up.

Instead, Mr. Williams has removed his life savings from his bank and has traveled to a seaside location in order to find someone who can teach him how to live. Encountering a drifter cum author and artist, Mr. Sutherland (Tom Burke), Mr. Williams tries out a night of debauched partying and what happens from there will reveal a great deal about both Mr. Williams and Mr. Sutherland. This sequence is lovely and sad and brilliantly revealing. It's a bravura sequence in a terrific movie.

Two more characters exist in this story and their story underlines the story of Mr. Williams. Alex Sharp plays Mr. Wakeling, a new man in Mr. Williams' department. The name, Mr. Wakeling, it's as if his name is intended to demonstrate that he lingers in the wake of others, carried along by the tide. Not a bad metaphor for a for a young man at the start of a new and confusing journey. Sharp gives Mr. Wakeling a wide-eyed eagerness that soon mellows into a healthy competence at his job and a general good nature.

Mr. Wakeling stands out as he is immediately taken with a fellow co-worker, Miss Harris (Aimee Lou Wood). Miss Harris has also caught Mr. Williams' eye though it's not a creepy infatuation. Mr. Williams admires the life he's witnessed from Miss Harris, her positive attitude and warmth. She makes the office a little brighter and in her he sees someone else who might be able to help teach him what it is like to be alive after having spent so many years merely functioning.

That's the magic of Living. Bill Nighy's performance is about learning to live and choosing the people who can guide you on that journey. It's a somber yet life affirming reminder of the ways you make an impression on people whether you are aware of it or not. Miss Harris made the world a little brighter without knowing she did it and, even from his cloistered space as a functioning cog in a bureaucratic wheel, Mr. Williams noticed it, admired it, and comes to praise it with hopes of learning more from it.

That's a beautiful idea and it is well explored in the patient and thoughtful direction of Oliver Hermanus and the insightful script of Kazuo Ishiguro. Hermanus adopts a look for Living early on that evokes 1950s Hollywood, and the work of director Nicholas Ray, that incredibly humanistic director, brilliantly known for his interior dramas. Like Ray, Hermanus uses interiors to reveal his characters. For instance, Mr. Williams' well dressed and mannered persona juxtaposed against the rowdy, grimy, seaside pubs, home to the debauched and delightful, Mr. Sutherland's of the world.

Then there are the interiors of Mr. Williams' home and office, dark, cold interiors that lack life and color, for the most part. Each of these spaces gain life as Mr. Williams does, especially when he decides to actually do something with his years of experience and work leverage. The interiors of Living are brilliantly staged and filmed to inform the characters and the individual scenes but are never showy, they are efficiently appointed and well used by a skillful filmmaking team.

Of course, what people will remember about Living is the performance of beloved character actor Bill Nighy. His wonderfully lined face is so familiar and welcoming that seeing him as this lifeless, gray older man is startling early on. Then, as he slowly regains himself and comes alive, those eyes find that twinkle we are so familiar with in Nighy's work in Love Actually, and other wonderful supporting performances. It's a brilliantly calibrated performance brimming with pathos and a sincere sense of rebirth.

There is a good reason why Bill Nighy is one of the most beloved and sought after supporting players in movies today. His charisma is effortless, our identification with him is immediate. Even when he mutes that gifted charm, as he does early on in this film, we find ourselves drawn to him. Even in despair, Nighy is the kind of person we want be around, learn about, and care for. Watching him find his life and purpose again in Living makes the film achingly compelling, even as the end of the movie is forecast very early on. It's a sad journey at times, but one you will still want to take with an actor so brilliantly compelling. Don't be surprised if Nighy joins the Academy Award conversation, that's how good he is in Living.

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