"Living" Isn't Quite Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru," which translates as "To Live," is one of my favorite films.  When I heard a British remake was being made, starring Bill Nighy and written by Kazuo Ishiguro, of all people, I was tentatively looking forward to it.  There's a long history of Western filmmakers remaking Kurosawa with good results, including "A Fisful of Dollars" and "The Magnificent Seven."  Alas, despite some good performances, "Living" isn't quite what I was hoping for.  

Ishiguro added a major character and adjusted a few relationships, but otherwise this is a very close retelling of the original story.  Nighy plays a career bureaucrat named Rodney Williams, the head of the Public Works department in London in 1953.  He leads a dull life, nicknamed "Mr. Zombie" at work, and sharing a home with his adult son and daughter-in-law, who largely ignore him.  When Mr. Williams receives a terminal medical diagnosis, he is faced with the question of how he wants to use his remaining months.  He spends time with a writer, Mr. Sutherland (Tom Burke), and one of his former employees, Mis Harris (Aimee Lou Wood), before coming to a surprising decision.  

"Living" is set in 1953, roughly the same era as "Ikiru."  This allows for the best idea in the film, which is to open with old footage of London in the 1950s, complete with vintage titles and credits.  Unfortunately, director Oliver Hermanus seems content to settle into a fairly pedestrian style after that.  He does a good job of highlighting the performances, and creating some nice moments of intimacy, but doesn't manage to come up with any memorable visuals.  It's not fair to compare Hermanus's work with Kurosawa's but I found myself deeply disappointed that one of the iconic images of "Ikiru" was reproduced in "Living" with much poorer results.  

Then there's the matter of Mr. Wakeling (Alex Sharp), a newer member of the Public Works department who is our POV character for a good portion of the film.  "Ikiru" famously has a two-part structure, where the first half follows the story from the hero's POV, and the second half is told through other characters, gradually filling in the details.  "Living" preserves this, but Ishiguro introduces Wakeling to provide a stronger, more sympathetic presence for the parts of the film where Mr. WIlliams is absent.  He's the youngster positioned to learn from Mr. Williams' example, and also helps to tie up a few loose threads with other characters. I don't know if it was the actor, but I found everything involving Wakeling to be too obvious and too unsubtle.      

I suspect that "Living" is one of those cases where such a faithful retelling didn't do the film any favors.  Japanese and British culture clearly have many things in common, but too often this felt like a copy/paste job.  I was disappointed that we didn't get to see more of the post-war London glimpsed in the opening frames of the film.  The best scenes involve Mr. Williams' developing relationship with Miss Harris, who gets a little more fleshing out than her counterpart in "Ikiru."  Miss Harris is more ambitious, more socially aware, and having a more difficult time in life. When Mr. Williams wants to spend time together socially, she's immediately concerned about the potential consequences for both of them.  

And that brings us to Bill Nighy, who is the main reason to see "Living."  It's a good role for him, and he does the part justice.  Mr. Williams is a quiet, dutiful, unassuming everyman, and it's impossible not to root for him.  It's terribly moving to see his uncertainty in the face of the inevitable, the little hints of how he's processing the bad news, and where his emotions finally spill over.  His transformation in the second half of the film is wonderful, but the structure of the film really does it no favors - especially the ending.  I'm glad that Nighy has gotten some attention for his work, but I can't help wishing that it were for a better film.           

Or maybe I'm just too close to the original to appreciate the charms of the remake. "Living" is one of the rare, simple, heartfelt melodramas of 2022 that feels like it has some real substance to it, and I hope its audience will find it.  

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