Bill Nighy
2022 - 12 - 22
Living review: an extremely proper British film is the perfect vehicle ... (The A.V. Club)
The Kazuo Ishiguro-penned adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru is a gentle, expertly crafted meditation on dying and, of course, living.
Ramsay, the well-tailored suits from costume designer (and 15-time Oscar nominee) Sandy Powell, and the delicate, string-infused score from Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch all contribute to the finely tuned perfection of the film. Skipping work for days on end, he eventually runs into Miss Harris outside of the office, and in several awkward but charming encounters, he confesses that he is dying of stomach cancer and grappling with a life filled largely with humdrum paper shuffling. Wakeling (Alex Sharp of The Trial Of The Chicago 7) as a bright-eyed, eager-to-please fledgling bureaucrat starting a new job in the Public Works department of 1953 London. In the office, they are joined by several other dapper gentlemen and the charming secretary Miss Harris (Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood) as they sort through immense files of paper. This latest iteration of Ivan Ilyich (in select theaters December 23) stars Bill Nighy in a uniquely British version of the story. The story, that of a successful bureaucrat looking back over his life in light of a fatal diagnosis, was originally penned by Leo Tolstoy in the form of his 1886 novella The Death Of Ivan Ilyich.
Review: Remake 'Ikiru'? 'Living,' with Bill Nighy, tries (ABC News)
It's an inalienable right among moviegoers that if your heart belongs to a movie, you're permitted distaste for its remake.
“Living,” a Sony Pictures Classics release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for some suggestive material and smoking. Because it's told, after his death, through the gossipy chatter of colleagues, “Living” leaves you with a melancholy puzzlement: Why does it take death to allow anyone to truly live? A gentleman, he says a little regretfully, “is what I longed to be.” In “Living,” the doctor gives it to him straight and unemotionally. In “Ikiru,” Takashi Shimura's Kanji Watanabe is told by a doctor that it's just an ulcer, a lie that both he and we know to be a cover for stomach cancer. But Nighy has impressively drained himself of the wit and charm that usually flows naturally out of him, adding a tension to “Living.” We know that deep down there's a more animated soul in Mr. But there's a stale emptiness to “Living” that doesn't entirely dissipate in even its most moving scenes. It's here that you would expect most any modern telling of “Ikiru” to slide into sentimentality. Of course, no one does repression quite like Ishiguro, author of “The Remains of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go.” In transferring “Ikiru” to midcentury England he's taken dead aim at a traditional notion of gentlemanliness and a classic sense of Britishness. His best performances are much more vibrant than his in “Living,” ironically enough. Williams quietly rules over a hushed corner of sprawling bureaucracy and “skyscrapers” of paperwork. The first thing you notice about “Living” is its starkly stylish photography.
'Living' reviews: Bill Nighy delivers 'his best performance' in ... (Goldderby)
He plays a humorless civil servant who takes time off work to experience life after receiving a grim diagnosis.
See our [latest prediction champs](https://www.goldderby.com/best-prediction-scores/awards/league-data/). [the 2023 Oscar nominees through January 24](https://www.goldderby.com/leagues/) [Make your predictions](https://www.goldderby.com/leagues/) at Gold Derby now. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our [famous forums](https://www.goldderby.com/forums/) where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Download our free and easy app for [Apple/iPhone devices](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1460576753) or [Android (Google Play)](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pmc.goldDerby) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. Rather, the film is full of longing and regret, but it allows Nighy’s character to search for his own purpose, however small.” In the end, “The film, with its warmth, emotion, and earnestness, is a reminder that the act of living, and not just going through the motions, is a choice worth making.” It’s a showcase role for the often underrated Nighy, who rarely gets to be a lead but is a terrific, emphatic leading man when given a chance.” They make a terrific duo, bolstered by Tom Burke as an itinerant writer who introduces Williams to the wild side of life, and Alex Sharpe as a new hire who gives a more innocent view of the situation.” In the end, Luxford touts the actor’s Oscar chances and calls the film “A masterful tear-jerker.” [City AM](https://www.cityam.com/bill-nighy-puts-in-the-performance-of-his-life-in-living/) praises Nighy as “one of those character actors who feels like he has been around forever, providing strong support in everything from ‘Pirates of The Caribbean’ to ‘Pride.’ In Living, he gets the rare chance to take the lead in a movie that may just be his finest performance.” Adding that the script is perfect for the actor, Luxford continues, “Nighy is the perfect choice for such understatement. Adapted from the 1952 Japanese film “Ikiru” by Akira Kurosawa, [Bill Nighy](https://www.goldderby.com/t/bill-nighy/)‘s praised performance headlines the film written Kazuo Ishiguro and directed by Oliver Hermanus. Now Nighy looks poised to receive his first Academy Award nomination — he ranks fourth in our current [Oscar odds](https://www.goldderby.com/odds/combined-odds/oscars-nominations-2023-predictions/). [JoBlo’s Movie Network](https://www.joblo.com/living-bill-nighy-sundance-review/) calls it “a strong star vehicle for Bill Nighy.” Adding, “Indeed, this is bound to be one of the highest-profile movies to emerge out of this year’s crop of Sundance films, which by and large have been quite good. The nuances, warmth and charisma that he brings to the role breathe it to life even during the quiet moments.
Review: If you doubted the greatness of Bill Nighy, a moving new ... (Hastings Tribune)
Not long into "Living," Mr. Williams learns that he has not long to live. The news doesn't come as a huge shock, but even if it did, you gather, nothing.
LIVING makes a case for thoughtful remakes — Moviejawn (Moviejawn)
Living Directed by Oliver Hermanus Written by Kazuo Ishiguro, based on the film Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa Starring Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Tom Burke, ...
I’m not saying there needs to be a rush to re-adapt Breathless or The Bicycle Thief but knowing that there are folks out there capable of turning in a remake that earns its keep is heartening in an era of soulless cash grabs. Kudos to the filmmakers for not feeling the need to update the setting with this remake, as this story plays best inside of a repressed society. Though overshadowed by the towering legacy of films like Seven Samurai (remade as The Magnificent Seven, which was itself remade), Yojimbo (remade as Django in Italy and Last Man Standing in the USA), and Rashomon (they’ll come for you too someday, sweet prince), Ikiru is Kurosawa’s quietest masterpiece. Or do they make you think, “Why would you ever try to remake a movie that is already perfect?” Which is precisely the question I asked when I found out an English language remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru was in the works. Sometimes it’s not even that important a piece of information, like whether or not a movie is based on a book or if it’s an original screenplay. A big reason why this particular kind of remake works so well is that half the time the American audience doesn’t even know they’re watching a remake.
Bill Nighy's Oscars Chances in Best Actor for 'Living' (Variety)
Bill Nighy is receiving career best reviews for "Living" and could land an Oscar nod for best actor.
[INTERNATIONAL FEATURE](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-international-feature-predictions-1235378161/) [DOCUMENTARY FEATURE](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-documentary-feature-predictions-1235410902/) [CINEMATOGRAPHY](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-cinematography-1235375652/) [ORIGINAL SONG](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-original-song-predictions-1235396256/) [ORIGINAL SCORE](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-original-score-predictions-1235381044/) [PRODUCTION DESIGN](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-production-design-predictions-1235411082/) [ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-original-screenplay-predictions-1235327855) [DIRECTOR](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-director-predictions-1235327849/) [SUPPORTING ACTRESS](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-supporting-actress-predictions-1235327853/) [ACTRESS](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-actress-predictions-1235327851) [ACTOR](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-actor-predictions-1235327850) [BEST PICTURE](https://variety.com/feature/2023-oscars-best-picture-predictions-1235306911/)
'Living' Star Bill Nighy On His "Conspicuously Marvelous Role" (Deadline)
'Living' Star Bill Nighy talks about his "conspicuously marvelous role," the joy of bowler hats ... and steering clear of karaoke machines.
I spent those first couple of days wandering about with white bobbles all over my pajamas and all over my face and a skull cap with a bobble on the top, and I didn’t run to the airport.” “Come on,” said the director, “how many times do you get to be in a pirate movie?” “He said I had rock and roll legs, which I was very flattered by.” “I don’t think like that,” he says. “I was 46,” he says, “and they put me in hair extensions. I saw the cameraman’s shoulders wobble because he was laughing so hard, and that made all the difference.” “All the words that seem to describe me begin with L,” he says. “When karaoke was inaugurated, I made a vow that, whatever the weather, I would never ever be in front of a karaoke machine. “I get institutionalized in it, and I like the fact that you don’t have to make any more decisions.” The headwear, however, was a different matter. I have no idea why, but I don’t think it impeded me in the role in any way because it added to his general unease, which was quite useful.” “And even then, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just do a couple years here, then I’ll work out what I really want to do.’ But then I got a job in a theater, painting sets. “I like it when I only have one costume,” he says.
'Living' Review: Losing His Inhibition (The New York Times)
Bill Nighy stars as a buttoned-up bureaucrat transformed by a grim diagnosis in this drama by the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, adapted from an Akira Kurosawa ...
At its worst, “Living” wallows generically, employing an overbearing piano score as the camera repeatedly sits with Williams’s sadness to diminishing effect. One of them is Williams (Bill Nighy), a cadaverous bureaucrat and the intimidatingly austere head of the Public Works Department. Eventually, he finds something to believe in, and alters his legacy in the process. The chipper Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood), the sole female employee of Williams’s wing, calls him “Mr. There is a coziness to “Living,” despite the fact that it revolves around death. That Japanese classic from 1952 stars the great Takashi Shimura as a drab Tokyo functionary who learns he is terminally ill and begins to question his life.
'Living' review: Extraordinary Bill Nighy will break your heart (New York Post)
In the new "Living" movie, 73-year-old British actor Bill Nighy has a strong shot for a well-deserved first Oscar nomination.
In those scenes, Nighy — still with a stiff upper lip — breaks your heart. Williams is a blasé bureaucrat with the now-defunct London County Council, where he is in charge of the public works department. Williams confuses them even more when he becomes obsessed with three mothers’ requests to build a playground on a derelict plot of land in their neighborhood to serve underprivileged kids. He also begins meeting up with a pretty assistant Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood, sublime) — not romantically — for lunches and movies. Like Williams, Nighy is keeping a secret from us, too, and we are in turn fascinated by his every blink and sigh. Williams, a shaken man concealing a fatal illness from his son and employees.
Living Communes with the Past to Honor a Kurosawa Classic (Vulture)
Movie Review: In Living, Bill Nighy portrays an English bureaucrat in post-war London who discovers that he only has a few months left to live.
Both Ikiru and Living are set in the years following World War II, and while the war is mentioned briefly, one does wonder how much the destructive uncertainty of those years (not to mention the global depression that preceded them) played into Williams and Watanabe’s respective desires to put their heads down and work their uneventful jobs. This is not campy cosplay, but a kind of communion with the spirit and simplicity of the past. The highest compliment I can pay Living is that it takes those dusty ideas and makes them resonate once more. [at the Metrograph](https://metrograph.com/film/?vista_film_id=9999000381) starting next week; for everybody else, [there’s Criterion](https://www.criterionchannel.com/ikiru/videos/ikiru) or [HBO Max](https://play.hbomax.com/page/urn:hbo:page:GXmlRtQZGhcNVoAEAAAMj:type:feature). We slowly learn that for him, this veneer of calm and muted confidence is an existential ambition; he’s spent his life aspiring to be a gentleman. This actually stands in marked contrast to Ikiru’s Takashi Shimura, one of Japan’s greatest and most versatile actors, who brought to that film’s protagonist Watanabe a broad, almost theatrical anguish. Then he realizes that, as a lifelong civil servant who understands the levers of power in the paralyzing bureaucracy in which he works, he can make a difference by simply helping build a modest children’s playground in a neglected corner of the city. Now, cloaked in the trappings of a film from 70 years ago, it feels like a message relayed from a hazy past to our smug present. The repression and conformity of stuffy middle-class jobs, the need to look up from a life lived within the tight parameters of society and to seize the moment – these are rudimentary, even corny themes at this point, worked over in novels and films for decades. Living doesn’t try to reinvent or reimagine Ikiru so much as transport it, as if to speculate what Kurosawa’s masterpiece might have looked like had it been produced in the British film industry, in color, at around the same time. In many of its details, the new movie, written by Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, adheres closely to the original. When it was properly released in the U.S.
Aimee Lou Wood on mastering "the art of simplicity" in her new film ... (The A.V. Club)
The award-winning Sex Education star on filming opposite Bill Nighy and the difference between simple and simple-minded characters.
And, you know, it’s one of the things about me that I like, which is that I have a lot of thoughts very quickly. But you can also cultivate simplicity, to just kind of help you be here in the now and noticing the small things, which she does effortlessly. What do I want my life to be full of?” That made me realize I want it to be full of abundance. Because I think one of the kindest things you can do for someone is give them a space to just talk and to just hold them and listen to them. And then it’s the moments where I go, Oh my god, I was actually just really here. AVC: You talked about reading the script during lockdown, and it struck me that this is actually a very timely film. So I was like, “Oh, she’s a great person and also he is so full of depth.” In that moment, she’s like, “This person that I have been sitting next to for 16 months, who has barely said a word, and has barely looked at me or noticed me and I haven’t really noticed him… In that moment it’s so beautiful the way that it reverses and he just speaks and she just listens. And I think also of that scene in the pub where Mr. Because Margaret does most of the talking and then all of a sudden it changes and she just gives him the space. And she does that a lot in the film. I find her very aspirational; I really want to be more like her, and be perhaps as present as she is and as dynamic as she is.
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