Get Busy Living
Tick, tock… what do you do if your time’s running out? In his Oscar-nominated role, Bill Nighy shows us in the subtlest of ways that there’s a lot more to life than paperwork and proper suits in Oliver Hermanus’ touching drama 'Living'.
good.film
2 years ago
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Living (UK, 102 min, Oliver Hermanus). In 1950s London, a humourless civil servant decides to take time off work to experience life after receiving a grim diagnosis.
What’s Living’s key social insight? Living uses the stuffy 1950s as a metaphor for the expectations we find ourselves striving to live up to today, in our careers and our personal lives. After decades of routine, we might find our care factor shrinking until we’re walking zombies - so, what was it all for? Living tells us that while it might be painful to break free of our habits, or shameful to admit our secrets to our closest friends and family, it’s never too late to throw convention out the window and start living.
What causes does Living explore? Cancer. Seniors.
Jump into that mental DeLorean, if you will, and zip yourself back to 1953. Not just any 1953, but London, England 1953 - where properness, pinstripes and hushed whispers were the order of the day. Gentlemen boarded trains, nodding at each other, with umbrellas under their arms and their shoes shined to a mirror sheen. Feels like a different planet, right? That’s exactly what director Oliver Hermanus is going for: putting us in a world where routine is sacrosanct (translation: after a few decades you might feel like you can’t breathe)! 70 years ago, there was big aspiration to being an upper-class working gent (a banker, say, or a councilman) but there’s quite a flipside to that suffocating routine. It can lead to - how can we put this? - feeling a bit like you’ve already died inside. Maybe you can relate…?!
What is Living about?
His full name is Rodney Williams, but you never hear it: as a senior bureaucrat in the London City Council, his colleagues all respectfully call him “Mr Williams”. He’s quiet, and prim, and most days look the same: paperwork seems to pile up, only to be shoved into other piles. Government, huh? When a group of determined women request the Council to turn a World War II bomb site into a kid’s playground, they’re trotted from department to department, ending up before Mr Williams, who plonks their application right at the back of the ‘never to do’ pile. It’s just the way things are done (or, not done). But his world flips on its axis when he receives a terminal cancer diagnosis, and Williams quickly has a quiet revelation: perhaps the best way to spend the time he has left is to do something - anything - good.
He rallies his office and subtly pushes his higher-ups into approving construction on the children's playground, literally not taking ‘no’ for an answer. The bittersweet point here is that Williams knows his time is running out - and he willingly gives that time up to bring meaning to his final days. By bringing a swing set and a merry-go-round to fruition, he can give a little happiness to others he’ll never meet. He does the same in person, too, treating his bright young colleague, Miss Harris, to an upscale lunch and writing her a glowing job reference over a whipped-cream sundae. In return, she gives him nothing more than her company, and that’s a gift: Williams seems to be in awe of Harris’s bubbly joy for life; pretty much the polar opposite of Williams’ buttoned-down persona. As if to underline it, she reveals his secret office nickname: “Mr Zombie”. Sure, being compared to the living dead would probably sting anybody, but given his ticking clock, this one hits super close to home. Mr Zombie has been proper for long enough: now he’s doubly determined to live a little, in the little life he has left.
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What causes does Living explore?
The universal message at the core of Living is simple - find joy, be kind, and don’t leave it too late - yet these basic truths are anchored by more complex dilemmas we all might feel when facing mortality. Did my career even matter? Have I fulfilled my purpose? Is it easier to just hit the road and never come back?
That last point is where the film touches on the immense difficulty that people (especially seniors) can feel in discussing a terminal diagnosis with their close family. In Living, it’s obvious that Williams wants to share the news with his son Michael, but just can’t seem to find the words. This is pretty common IRL - a cancer.net report on how cancer can affect family life says point blank, “...expect relationships to change. Many people have little experience with life-threatening illnesses. They may not know what to say to you or how to act. For some, it may be frightening to learn that you have cancer. For these reasons, some of your friends or family members may not be able to offer you the support that you expect.”
Bingo. That’s the reason Mr Williams finds comfort in his lunches with Miss Harris; there’s no suggestion of any flirty business between the pair, just a fresh energy that he can confide in. We feel his burden lift the moment he eventually reveals his diagnosis to Miss Harris, not his son. There’s real-world evidence to back up this behaviour, too: seniors can often feel motivated to reach out and make new friends after receiving a terminal diagnosis, as they seek to find meaning in their remaining time. And a study published in the Journal of Psychosocial Oncology found that people with advanced cancer in support groups reported feeling less lonely and more connected to others.
“Despite Living’s themes of existential crisis and rebirth, Nighy never telegraphs sentimentality … this subdued and delicate portrait is an invitation rather than a proclamation.” ~ Peg Aloi
How will Living make me feel?
In life, they say you have to take the rough with the smooth - but perhaps Living puts it better, reminding us to flip the boredom and find the joy. There’s delight in seeing the simple discoveries that Mr Williams allows himself after he packs in his life as a stuffy office drone. We’re not talking about huge stuff here: while we might choose jet-skiing in the Caribbean, Mr Williams seems stunned by the very idea that he might trade in his stiff bowler hat for a jaunty trilby. It’s fun to see what unfolds from there: a trip to the seaside, a drunken night in a rowdy pub, an impromptu connection with a stranger on the road that sets him on a new path. They’re all small actions that have bigger impacts on a man who knows his life is ending, and that he’d better find a good full stop to put on it - and jolly quick.
“Living deftly challenges us to ask ourselves how dead we may be inside. And more importantly, what we plan to do about it.” ~ Al Alexander
To quote critic Abhishek Srivastava, “Living is a film that compels you to ponder the meaning of life and instils hope.” Fellow film writer Moira MacDonald puts it with a different spin, saying “Like the best of novels, Living creates a tiny world to get lost in, one whose faces and shadows and sunlight linger with you.” They’re both spot on. Oddly, we feel joy for the dying Mr Williams, because we witness him finding his own joy again. He lived to see the children’s playground get built, because he took a gallon of metaphorical fabric softener and drowned the stiff & starchy Mr Zombie before it was all too late. Living is a simple yet beautiful film that acts as a bit of inspo for all of us - at any age - to eat that dessert, buy that hat, and belt out that favourite song, loudly & proudly.
Interested in other films about cancer and seniors? Discover the top 10 streaming titles that explore these powerful themes - or donate to the cause at good.film/donate.
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