Oliver Hermanus’ Living, which stars BAFTA and Golden Globe winner Bill Nighy, will premiere in New York and Los Angeles on December 23, 2022, before spreading to more cities. As with the original, Living is a British remake of the 1952 Akira Kurosawa film Ikiru (which was originally an adaptation of the Russian Leo Tolstoy novel The Death of Ivan Ilyich published in 1886), with the tale following many of its famous rhythms. Mr Williams, a British bureaucrat played by Nighy, confronts his own mortality after being diagnosed with a terminal disease in the film, which was written by Sir Kazuo Ishiguro. To have a lasting impact on the next generation before him, he makes a last-minute decision to create a playground as his farewell gift to the world.
Living’s cast also includes Aimee Lou Wood, Tom Burke, Alex Sharp, Adrian Rawlins, Hubert Burton, and Oliver Chris. At the 2022 Sundance Picture Festival in January, the film garnered an enthusiastic reception. Currently the time of writing, the film had a Rotten Tomatoes score of 96%, based on 53 reviews. Maggie Lovitt, who rated the film a score of, also awarded it excellent marks “Said that the movie was a “very sad picture which asks its viewers to go deep and contemplate on the legacy they may one day leave behind. Nighy’s performance as a man tormented by regrets over a life well-lived but not well-enough is deeply poignant.”
On several occasions, she lauded Hermanus and his Director of Photography Jamie Ramsay for the judgments they made as directors and the shot compositions they achieved. A theatrical release in New York & Los Angeles is planned for December 23, 2022, with more cities to follow. This film is based on the 1952 Japanese film “Ikiru,” which tells the story of a man who, after years of toiling in an oppressive office job, is reduced by the routine to a shadowy existence and, at the eleventh hour, makes an extraordinary attempt at making the most of his mundane existence into something wonderful… into one he can say has been lived to its fullest.