Living (2022) – Movie Review | Jimmy at Sundance | Bill Nighy | Akira Kurosawa Ikiru (1952) Remake

Servus Freunde, my name is Jimmy Cage and 
here comes another recommendation from this  
year’s Sundance Film Festival. LIVING is a British 
period drama that tells the story of a bureaucrat,  
played by the great Bill Nighy, who learns that he 
only has a few more months to live. It’s the story  
of a man, who has been trapped in his daily, life- 
and meaningless routine for ages and now suddenly  
comes to terms with his own limited time. It’s 
an ode to life and to make the best of your time.  
And if that sounds familiar to you, it’s 
because Oliver Hermanus’ film is a remake  
of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 classic IKIRU. LIVING 
is basically taking the same original script  
and adapting it to another setting. Even the 
time it takes place in is the same. The 1950es,  
but this time it’s not Tokyo in Japan but London 
in England. But the story, the characters and even  
many scenes are pretty identical, only adapted 
into another cultural setting. And surprisingly…  
or maybe not really surprisingly, it works really 
well in this post World War 2 British setting as  
well. The depiction of this period is actually 
one of the movie’s strongpoints. While it was a  
contemporary setting in the Japanese original 
from 1952, this new movie tries to recapture  
this long-gone era and it does a fantastic job. It 
is filmed in a classic four by three aspect ratio  
and the production design and cinematography are 
quite remarkable. It really feels as

if the movie
is taking you on a time travel. The costumes,
locations and tone of the film are really strong.
I was especially enchanted by the way the movie
is using focus, often times very shallow focus,
to lead us through the scenes. Weirdly enough
I’m not sure if the film’s impeccable style and
extreme respect and closeness to the original,
wasn’t holding me back from getting immersed and
moved by it even more. Almost as if I was seeing
too much of the adaptation work and not just
the heartfelt story itself. I also have to admit
that I had a rather hard time to see it just for
what it is, because I felt as if the original
was constantly informing the remake for me.
Meaning that I didn’t just watch this version’s
character, but as if the character from the
original and his hardships were flowing over
into this one. And with me already knowing
every story beat, it also did feel a bit too slow
to be honest. But it’s nevertheless a really fine
film with a marvelous performance by Bill Nighy.
My favorite scene is already happening early on,
when he is sitting alone at home and thinking
back on his life. The little vignettes from his
past are visualized so beautifully, being shown in
black and white at first and then gaining color,
when they are coming to life again for
our protagonist. I was really touched by
that whole sequence. I give LIVING 7 out of
10. It’s more like 7.3 but I don’t do that.
Alright, that’s it for today. I hope you are
looking forward to more Sundance reviews coming
your way. You can hit me up, on Twitter,
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