Film Shapes

Quiet dignity radiates from this moving remake of Kurosawa's  Ikiru  and it has the recognisable stamp of Kazuo Ishiguro all over it. This acclaimed (Nobel Prize-winning, even) novelist has previous with Merchant/Ivory fare - he wrote the screenplay for  The White Countess  and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala adapted his great novel,  The Remains of the Day  - and  Living  isn't too far removed from the style of these Brit heavyweights. The focus is on stuffy Mr. Williams, played with fierce introspection by Bill Nighy. As much as we all want him to crack out some semi-drunken wittery, he holds himself in check, and it's probably his most mannered, yet natural performance. He's tip-top in this. Set in early 1950s London, Ishiguro and director, Oliver Hermanus show Williams as a buttoned-up, broadsheet reading, Fortnum & Mason frequenting gentleman - in fact, he confesses that a gentleman was all he ever aspired to be. His confidante takes the form of a y...