Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Bill Nighy, Aimee Lee Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke
Intro:
… careful to take us along the journey in a nuanced way and the payoff is superbly satisfying. You would have to be a very hard-hearted person not to be moved by this.
It has been said before, but there are deep parallels between English and Japanese sensibility; a sense of formality, of reserve and ritual, a keen sense of decorum and respecting others’ privacy. This elegant little film from South African director Oliver Hermanus (Beauty) deliberately explores this synergy.
For one thing, it is a sort-of remake of classic film Ikiru, made in 1952 by the great Akira Kurosawa. Also, the near perfect screenplay is penned by Nobel prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, whose biography and heritage combine England and Japan. As Ishiguro showed when he wrote Remains of the Day, you almost feel that he understands the English more than the English.
Protagonist Mr Williams (Bill Nighy) is a buttoned-down public servant commuting by train every day from the leafy stockbroker belt outside London. He is so severe that his colleagues advise keen young newbie Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp) that it is expected that people are not too familiar or chipper standing next to Mr Williams on the platform in the morning. They give Alex the tip that he should behave a bit, like he would in church.
Everything changes when Mr Williams receives news that makes him decide to live differently, that is assuming that he has been living in the fullest sense at all before. In this new direction, he is much aided by beautiful young female recruit Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood from Sex Education), with whom he develops a delicate platonic late life friendship.
People might pigeonhole this film, especially as it stars Bill Nighy doing his ultra-English thing, but it is hard to imagine anyone else playing it better. In fact, this is one of Nighy’s best performances. His thin lipped, slightly drawn face, with his hooded eyes, has been exploited in roles a bit like this before, but, still, no one does understatement quite like him.
The arc of the narrative is not hard to guess, but the film is careful to take us along the journey in a nuanced way and the payoff is superbly satisfying. You would have to be a very hard-hearted person not to be moved by this.
