Review | Living

“I felt like I must have been very, very good in a previous life, because what did I do to deserve this,” said actor Bill Nighy of the (deservedly) critically acclaimed role that writer Kazuo Ishiguro wrote especially for him in the film Living. 

Based on the 1952 Japanese film Ikiru directed by Akira Kurosawa (which was inspired by the 1886 Russian novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy), Living more than lives up to its impressive pedigree and the thematic throughline, which is “the idea that you can have a significant and important life without world domination,” as Nighy explained in a post-screening Q&A at Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Cinema Society. Both Nighy’s performance and the film itself — directed by Oliver Hermanus, who also appeared at the SBIFF event — are subtle and heartwarming in this story of buttoned-up businessman who, when facing a fatal illness, finally lets down his hair and begins to really transform himself by learning to enjoy life. 

Despite the fact that Nigy’s final move in his career running the Public Works Department is to help some mothers get through the bureaucracy to create a neighborhood playground, there is not a drop of cheap sentimentality in this story. It could have been incredibly sappy in less skilled hands. Instead, it’s an exquisitely sad, extremely relatable story — and an incredible showcase for Nighy’s skill as an actor.