movie reviews
“life”
Rated PG-13. At AMC Boston Common and Landmark Kendall Square
Class A-
A very moving hybrid film, the British entry “Living” is based on the 1952 film “Ikiru” by Japanese master Akira Kurosawa. The Kurosawa movie stars Takashi Shimura (“Seven Samurai”). Adapted by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (“The Remains of the Day”), “Living” is set in 1953 as an elderly London civil servant (a heartbroken Bill Nighy) who has cancer. This is the story of how I learned about And his days are numbered.
Interestingly, this news is both devastating and liberating. For one thing, the movie’s main character, named Williams, can stop going to the office. In the opening scene of his wearing a bowler hat, a new recruit named Wakeling (Alex Sharp) accompanies a colleague on a train to London and encounters the tall and imposing Williams on the way to the city. Joining a cadre of pale young men and middle-aged men led by Williams is a somewhat sassy young woman named Margaret Harris (a delightful Amy Lou Wood from TV’s “Sex Education”). Ms. Harris is literally a splash of color (and sound) in her monochrome office, and it’s no surprise that Williams tries to befriend her with this vivacious creature whenever possible.
For those familiar with Nye menacingly reviving an octopus-faced Davy Jones in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie or stealing from a young castmate in Love Actually (2003), A calm and discreet work in “living room” will appear. As a small surprise. Like Williams, Nye may already be a ghost. Also, her newly arrived mother of three visits a public works office presided over by Williams and petitions to turn the neighborhood’s bombed-hazardous area into a playground. A dying Williams makes this noble cause his last stand. For the most part, Williams and his colleagues simply referred public members to other offices to avoid the risk of rocking the boat and getting into trouble.
Eventually, widowed Williams returns to Williams’ sleepy London suburb where she lives with her son (Barry Fishwick) and daughter-in-law (Patsy Phelan), and the old man is seen with a much younger woman. was given. He even takes Ms. Harris to lunch at Fortnum. In many ways, she’s a ghost of Christmas past, a tender and poignant reminder of Williams’ missed opportunity. Williams, who takes half of his savings for a trip to the beach, meets a playwright (Tom Burke), who shows him around the local sights. Those are bittersweet memories for Williams, and while Williams was able to help her young mother get a playground, she can’t change much about herself at this point. ‘s South African manager Oliver Hermanus guides Nye in this quietly winning performance.
(“Alive” contains suggestive content)
