Life is a journey that doesn’t end, but rather changes form. The reality is that none of us are nearly as important as we think we are, and instead each one of us is just another component of a constantly changing world, part of the proverbial machinery that has yet to come to a halt, and likely never will, as we are a species that tends to show tenacity when it comes to staying around. This is a very cynical perspective on life (and one that essentially challenges thousands of years of spiritual and religious doctrine), but it is something that we tend to think about on occasion. Art itself has always had a very strange relationship with the concept of life as a whole – whether in the realm of existential philosophy or just social commentary as a whole, we have been conditioned to believe certain ideas, as well as having others disproven. The truth is that we don’t quite know the meaning of life, and it is not likely that we ever will – we are simply briefly passing through this world, where we all yearn to leave some kind of legacy and impact, whether to make a genuine difference in the world, or just to be remembered beyond one of a myriad of people who made their way through life. This is the foundation for Living, in which Oliver Hermanus tells the beautiful and poetic story of a crotchety civil servant who is given a diagnosis that indicates his life will be a lot shorter than he imagined, with less than half a year standing between him and his demise, leading him to reconfigure his understanding of what his life should be, and having a rediscovery at the eleventh hour, where he begins to learn the virtue of compassion. It’s a fascinating film that is driven by a sincerity that is inexplicably absent in contemporary cinema, but which Hermanus (one of the most exciting voices in modern filmmaking) uses as the foundation for his extraordinary and complex examination of life and death, and everything in between.

Leo Tolstoy, Akira Kurosawa and Kazuo Ishiguro – beyond being arguably amongst the most impressive artists of their respective generations, there is something else that they share in common, namely form the unconventional lineage of a single story, which has been adapted into various forms as the years have gone on. Starting with Tolstoy’s novel The Death of Ivan Ilyich, we have seen Ikiru become one of the most beloved Japanese films of its era, and now Living, in which Ishiguro once again proves that he is undeniably one of the greatest voices in contemporary literature. Death is already a subject that is difficult to talk about, and which essentially serves to be one of the more challenging subjects, but one that has fascinated artists for as long as we have been telling stories. It is the one great inevitability of life, and regardless of whether it is something we fear or simply anticipate, it is an event that will come to all of us. This is where these stories converge, and each one is a delicate, complex depiction of an individual coming to terms with his mortality, and his gradual process of bidding farewell to the life that he has led, saying a gentle goodbye to not only the people who have undergone this journey alongside him, but also the places that he has visited, and the memories that he has made along the way. The concept of remakes and re-interpretations have caused an appropriate level of cynicism, but if anyone was going to take these two cherished texts and bring them to a new audience through a new perspective, it would be Ishiguro, who transposes the events to 1950s London, but maintaining many of the most important elements, such as the resolution and many of the philosophical ideas, which remain mainly untouched, since they are both timeless and deeply meaningful in their own distinct, powerful way. The words flow with such incredible fluidity, and while it may not be his most challenging work, by virtue of it simply being the author adapting a previously-existing text, it has its moments of extraordinary profundity, which are incredibly insightful and often quite moving, which is exactly what was required from someone tasked with adapting this material, whereby it needed to be updated in certain areas, while remaining stagnant in others.

An important element of this film revolves around the discussion of precisely how to define life. For many, it is simply that hyphen that exists between dates, while for others it is something far more complex and difficult to comprehend. A film like Living takes a bipartisan view, starting by looking at the former before gradually evolving to encapsulate elements of the latter, which is a fascinating way of telling such a story, and one of the many reasons that it is important to appreciate this film and everything that it represents. We all have our daily routines, and this film may not vilify those who adhere to these day-to-day activities, but it also certainly doesn’t view it as something that should be all-defining of any individual, especially those who have found themselves in a cyclical state of continuously repeating the same banal routines until we cannot take it any longer, both physically and psychologically. Life is about pursuing more than just making ends meet, and while this may be a vaguely elitist way of looking at it (since it seems to glamourize the idea of leading a life without responsibilities), it all leads to the main thesis statement of the entire story, which is essentially about the importance of finding the balance, whatever it may be. The reality that we all have to understand is that, despite centuries of profound thought, we are no closer to understanding the meaning of life today than we were at the dawn of humanity. Instead, we have just grown more complex in terms of our social and cultural aspects, which essentially exist just to conceal the fact that we don’t possess all the answers. This film does pose the question of trying to find some meaning in life (rather than defining it entirely), and it does propose some of its own ideas, which are suitably touching, and about as close as we can get to a genuine answer. Living intends to show the value of kindness, and how small acts of genuine compassion can change entire lives – it may not fend off one’s inevitable demise, but it can help make the time they spend alive all the more fulfilling and meaningful, which is perhaps the most powerful and poignant experience anyone could possibly have, possessing the knowledge that they made a difference, regardless of how big or small it may be, since it is always the intention that means the most.

Much of the discourse around Living has been about praising Bill Nighy for delivering what many are considering to be his defining performance. The issue with such conversations is that it somehow suggests that an actor of his stature has not been consistently good for decades, when in reality this is merely one of his many incredible performances that demonstrate that he is undeniably one of our greatest living actors, and someone who we have grown to appreciate as an anchor of the industry, an actor who could be cast in anything from the leading role to a small supporting part, and still be the best part of nearly any film in which he appears. However, Living is a slightly different piece altogether – he has given astonishing performances before, but yet there is something different about what he is doing here, almost as if he is actively trying to play a character in a way we have yet to see. There is nothing formally different about this character – he is an elegant and patrician member of the middle class in a period drama, which is the kind of role that Nighy has mastered over the years. The differences come in the small details, the emotional nuances that sit right at the heart of the film, and which are so beautifully examined throughout his performance. Even when he was involved in films like Pride and About Time, both of which served to contain moments of deep emotional complexity (Nighy being involved in the most heartbreakingly beautiful moments of each), he never quite managed to strike the chord that we found here. There is a level of detail to his performance that feels striking, beautiful and nuanced, and it is certainly very difficult to not fall in love with what he is doing on screen, since he proves yet again that he is capable of anything. The rest of the cast, which includes Aimee Lou Wood, Tom Burke and Alex Sharp, amongst others, all exist to service Nighy and bolster his performance, which is one of the most singularly powerful, meaningful portrayals of a man coming to terms with his mortality that we have ever seen, which is in itself an astonishing achievement.

However, what makes Living so special isn’t only what it says, but also the manner in which it says it – and moving beyond the acting, which is objectively very impressive, we find a lot of what propels the film being found in the smallest details. Ishiguro’s approach to the screenplay was to focus on the bare essentials, which are woven together by Hermanus into a fascinating mood piece, a story that is driven less by the plot, and more by a very particular atmosphere. It is a psychological character study, but one that has a certain sophistication to how it challenges and reconfigures specific ideas, which relate to the theme of not only identity, but mortality and philosophy as a whole. However, despite its occasionally more crooked understanding of these characters and how they operate, the most poignant aspects of the film exist in the small moments, whether they be conversations between characters, or scenes in which they quietly examine themselves and come to terms with their place in the world, or rather as much of it as they can possibly put together to express. This is a film about the human condition, and much like most of the director’s work previously, it functions best when it is making smaller but more profound assertions, rather than the bold exclamation that we’d otherwise expect from such a story. Additionally, Hermanus works laboriously to capture the spirit of London in the 1950s, understanding that, while it may not be particularly vital on a narrative level, the film does depend on this almost nostalgic feeling, which indicates its challenging but fascinating relationship with the past. In terms of both the cinematography by Jamie D. Ramsay and the score composed by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Living is a masterful blend of different artistic components that work together in flawless synchronicity, gradually coming together to form this powerful and evocative masterpiece that is shepherded together by one of the most compelling modern directorial voices, someone whose ability to not only capture a specific tone, but maintain it for the entire duration of the film makes Living so much more effective than had it been executed as a more traditional drama. which would have still been a decent effort based on the performances and script, but would ultimately lack the very specific spark brought to the film through Hermanus’ very unique sense of directorial complexity.

It is likely that we have all come across the term “sonder”, which is described as that peculiar feeling one gets when realizing that every person that passes us in our daily routine is living their own varied, complex and meaningful life, and that even if we only exist in each other’s life for the briefest of moments, perhaps not even acknowledging one another as anything other than a passerby, there is a momentary connection. Living is a film that exists right at that point of contact, the moment between strangers that may or may not acknowledge one another physically, but still forge a bond for a brief second. Watching this film is the same as observing life as it is, with the simple, evocative depiction of these characters going about their daily activities in itself being absolutely remarkable, and which only becomes more impactful as the story progresses and we see that there is much more to their lives than we initially imagined. Remaking any film is a daunting task, and when it is considered one of the masterpieces by arguably the greatest filmmaker of his generation, you can imagine the challenge that stood before those involved in taking Ikiru and reconfiguring it to a different setting (which allowed for a new set of cultural nuances and conversations), while retaining those universal elements that carry such significant meaning, and should remain entirely untouched. Living is a masterful film – a detailed, complex and deeply compelling depiction of a man choosing to turn his life around in the last few months that he has been given, aiming to make a difference, not to secure his legacy or receive praise after his passing, but to at least know that he has exited his life making at least one small change, which will hopefully compound in the form of inspiring those around him to do the same, whether in his memory or as part of their own genuine belief in making a difference. An exceptionally compassionate and deeply moving meditation on life and death, Living is an extraordinary and heartbreaking film that has an abundance of soul, and a genuine love for the human condition, which is an increasingly rare commodity, but one that is worth acknowledging when it appears.