Set in London in 1953, it follows an unassuming bureaucrat, Mr Williams, a widower who heads a department in London’s County Hall and spends much of his time achieving nothing more than passing around paperwork.
Yet is he one of the ‘gentlemen’ that he had, even as a child, aspired to be, complete with bowler hat and all the formal, repressed and repressive behaviour of a certain type of the English middle classes of that era – and even now.
However, when he receives a terminal diagnosis from his doctor of less than a year to live, he finds himself wondering how to make sense of a life unlived – and to make the most of what is left.
Having helped County Hall pass between departments a petition from a group of working-class women calling for a bomb site to be made into a playground for their children, perhaps Williams can find a way to redemption and a sense of being alive by changing tack?
This seemingly slender plot is based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 Ikiru (itself inspired by Tolstoy’s 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, before you start screaming ‘cultural appropriation!’) and was predominantly written by the Nobel-winning British laureate Kazuo Ishiguro.
Ishiguro is perhaps most well known for his work The Remains of the Day – a magnificent book made into a magnificent film with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. There is arguably nobody better at portraying repressed and buckled up English emotion, with all that that means.
And this is no exception.
Ishiguro apparently approached Bill Nighy to ask if he’d be interested in this film, because he had him in mind for Williams. And what a perfect match it has turned out to be.
Nighy has been entertaining us wonderfully for years, but this is his first real starring vehicle. And he doesn’t let it pass him by. It is an absolutely superb performance of a deeply repressed human being trying to find a way to come to life even as that life is coming to an end.
There is not an expression or word that is out of place. Never showy – but just watch his eyes. Nighy is avowedly not a ‘method’ actor, yet when you watch this, he is feeling every single emotion and thought. Whatever anyone calls it, his is a simply stunning yet understated performance.
Ishiguro’s script is top notch. It never gives in to easy sentiment and yet finds, within all the buttoned-up emotions, real emotion. There is a scene in a train carriage, with four of Mr William’s co-workers, after attending his funeral, that is quite astonishing in what it achieves through the most minimalist approach.
The period scenery is superb, the original score by Emile Levienaise-Farrouch is astonishingly good (you’ll struggle to believe it’s original) and James D Ramsey’s cinematography is excellent.
There's much here thematically, in terms of mortality and life. If the plot is 'slight', there is a philosophical depth that is rare in films. But while this, it relies greatly on the acting.
Nighy, given the opportunity, gives the performance of his career. If he isn’t in the top award nominations next year, it would be a shock.
But while he holds the movie, he is not alone. Aimée Lou Wood is superb as his one-time colleague who has a rather more cynical view of the County Hall ‘gentlemen’, and particular shout outs for Alex Sharp as the new boy in Williams's department and Tom Burke as the Brighton bohemian who tries to help Williams early on.
Incredibly moving, yes – but also incredibly life affirming.
One of the best films of the year without doubt.
