LIVING is an example of why brick and mortar movie theaters shall not perish from the Earth. South African born director, Oliver Hermanus' LIVING (2022), is an exquisite feature film. It gives us another view of the co-existence of classic bioethical principles in a state of tension.
The reader should know there is no pretense of impartiality by this film reviewer. I don’t have time to review films I dislike, nor those I am disinterested in understanding. That is someone else’s job. My want is that the reader should grab a mask, check you are fully up to date with your Covid and Flu vaccines, and maybe find a babysitter. Next, you should buy tickets for a brick and mortar theater screening with a very high ceiling and good ventilation. All this because LIVING is a film born to be viewed on the biggest, boldest, quality screens, and heard through the best sound systems.
LIVING’s main character is portrayed by Bill Nighy. His performance, in symbiosis with South African born director Hermanus, draws every ounce of blood out of the character that is Mr. Williams. These moments on screen, will be noted as not just outstanding in both of their careers, but perhaps in this century. We learn to see a world through Williams’ psyche as he attempts an escape from one life to another. The setting is England, less than a decade since the Blitz and the mass civilian death tolls of civilians on English soil during World War II. Yet, the trains are running on time again.
The opening images are London, circa 1950. Like the tint of a good set of name brand sunglasses, everything is wrapped in a soft sepia— protecting the beauty of the morning from the disturbance of glare. Its idyllic cinematography releases us from reality. An astounding classical score floats our souls. We want to be with the characters, on that train, leaving a station, en route to London. Perhaps we fantasize riding on the roof, then leaping up to kiss a steeple.
That morning, as many others before, a group of young men board the train together. Sitting in facing seats, they talk, as would a gaggle of goslings. The train platform and cars are a sea of bowler hats, the headwear associated with the British civil service since the nineteenth century. The newly minted young workers banter is playful and gossip riddled. An older drawn man, in his bowler hat, enters the gosling’s car. He moves deliberately through them down the aisle. A new inductee to the civil service “goslings,” kindly but naively, clears a nearby seat for the elder gentleman senior colleague whom they (and we) may come to know as Mr. Williams. With nary an acknowledgment of the potential kindness, the sallow, past middle age, civil servant that is Williams walks through to the adjacent car. The other members of the gaggle of goslings know that man would never sit with them..
This is how we initially meet Bill Nighy, as Mr. Williams, an aging, worse for the wear civil servant. On that train, we do not yet know that Mr. Williams is in an arena adjacent to ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE (1947) or DARK VICTORY (1939). We certainly do not know that Mr. Williams, born from the mind of Nobel Literary Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, exists in homage to the 1952 Japanese film, Ikiru, directed by Akira Kurosawa. Though the work might quickly recall a collegiate term paper I wrote inspired by the 1886 Russian novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Leo Tolstoy, whom writer Ishiguro also acknowledges. It could be easily argued that the main characters in LIVING are more related as third cousins, once removed, than they are literary sibling twins. Apparently, they live in a house passed down through generations.
We know nothing of Mr. Williams before the day we met him on the train, except— his speech is nearly monosyllabic and his face, inanimate. His character note from first flash on the screen is Alienation, ie. a stunned sense of detachment from his own needs— never mind those of others. Alienation is notably a common phenomenon now recognized in combat veterans and others with post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, the place of LIVING is London, a decade past WWII. Mr. Williams has lived through. He likely has survived the Blitz —up until now. Yet, his wife has died. His son and daughter in-law live in his house. His son’s wife seems to be waiting for the elderly man to die, as well, though she is oblivious to that actual possibility.
Mr. Williams’ character arc starts with his inability to receive, perceive, or disseminate goodness. He is apparently a dead man walking, insensate and disconnected. So stilted is Williams, that he doesn’t even have a first name. Often, screen works aim at the low hanging fruit of a subset of Bioethics— Clinical Medical Ethics. This subset relies on the trappings of the clinical arena—hospitals, ERs, surgical suites, morgues, even autopsy slabs—think Ben Casey through the most recent addition to the Good Doctor.
The film, LIVING, dares to go where clinicians are loathe to tread. Instead of staying in the clinical lanes, of beneficence (doing good with medicine) and autonomy (doing what is in a persons own best self interest )—this film wades into the deep muck of justice. It’s a principle that can rarely be actualized in a hospital— but rather in the street. In fact, any clinical medical data in LIVING is dismissed in less than three minutes and two shots in the whole film. None of those minutes occur in a hospital, but only in Mr. Williams’ head.
Though it is a long journey in LIVING, our protagonist Mr. Williams is able to recognize that others are playing their game of life on an uneven field. It is a field scarred by ruts and war debris, much as is his character. He is handicapped by emotional and physical circumstances. Escaping the monster of a life of hard earned alienation leaves Williams’ trying to level the playing field through justice. That would be justice for himself and others for whom he has learned to care. In that turn, this film eschews the pedantic medical ethics storylines, set in medical environments with attendant props and costumes.
Mr. Williams’ character arc recognizes his need to act beneficently by doing good for those in need. Finally, he embraces, autonomy by defining what his own interests actually are. LIVING is a candidate for the pantheon of Bioethics Films, but it deals with the field’s common themes and principles in an entirely new way.
Director Oliver Hermanus' handling of the pivotal relationship between actor Bill Nighy, Mr. Williams, and the character Miss Margret Aimee Lou Wood, is significant. It breaks away from any cliches and introduces a unique relationship between a young woman and an older man than seen on film of recent. In the end, Ishiguro’s script, and the Hermanus have made a truly unique film. That is, the climax of the effort lay in Ms. Margret and the mothers of children become the primary turnkeys for change in the main character. They made Mr. Williams a star.
As with any film, LIVING’s life blood is the matching of extraordinary actors and their director, with engaged film professionals working as a team. Living has very rich blood.
***
Bioethics Screen Reflections and September Williams, MD-Writer, acknowledges and thanks Larsen Associates for their continuing access to Independent Films, filmmaker interviews, screenings and background materials, including permission to use photographs of films including LIVING.