Lindsey Lowson / 27 April 2026 / Categories: Movie and TV Shows, Movie

Living; don’t wait until someone tells you your time is up to start

2022 historical melodrama starring Bill Nighy and Aimee Lou Wood

Sometimes the simplest of stories are the best. And make one of those films that lingers with you after the final “The End” Not a loud, in your face action packed picture but one that slowly builds with stunning shot framing by South African director Oliver Hermanus.

The film, written by Kazuo Ishiguro, is an English-language adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 Japanese film Ikiru which makes it all the more unusual adapted into a 2022 British historical drama film Living, starring Bill Nighy.

It’s an intriguing watch that develops frame by frame, the sets and the costumes coming together beautifully to create a period piece set in the 1950s that’s just about life. And suggests to the viewer perhaps how we all waste it until it’s too late. And yet it is not sad, it delivers a poignant and deep message, softly, gently, painlessly.

The main character Mr. William’s played by Nighy, a civil servant who has gone to the same job on the same train, lived in the same house eaten the same meals, Shepards pie and endured some unspoken torments until they have become comfortable, receives a terminal diagnosis, 6 months, 9 tops which changes everything.

At work he becomes absent and then committed to making one massive difference. He changes the way he deals with colleagues, one Miss Harris cleverly played by Aimee Lou Wood he befriends after working with for 16 months and being so detached she confesses her nick name for him Mr. Zombie while having and an out of character innocent lunch at Fortums as an unlikely pair causing gossip and speculation.

The film shows how you never really know people or what they are going through. And shows how so many waste time never really living (why the title) until may be it’s too late.

Living is an inspirational work, not fast paced or entertaining in a song and dance or high action way but so colourful in it’s expression and deep emotional feeling the actors and clever director manage to convey onto the screen.

It’s the kind of film you watch and find yourself in. Not because you relate to the time, the work, the rigid routine but because finding courage to walk your own path in life and making a difference, living with direction and purpose can be a challenge few consciously tackle.

If this film tells you anything it’s don’t wait until someone tells you your time is up to start LIVING.

It’s a magnificent film, so creative and beautiful in style. It reminded me of Tom Ford’s A Single Man in some ways, how life’s challenges can bog you down but happiness is always available even in the most difficult of circumstances. A great film to help if you if you need a change of perspective. A clear outline on the origin of happiness and purpose.