Living

A department head in a London council office in the nineteen-fifties receives a terminal diagnosis. He has sat at the same desk for thirty years and completed nothing. The film does not spend the remaining time on a list; he tries enjoying himself first, it does not work, and then he decides to push through by hand a petition for a playground that has been circulating between desks for years. The narrative ties its subject to that: is one finished piece of work enough to give a life meaning. Oliver Hermanus directed from a script by Kazuo Ishiguro, with Bill Nighy in the lead. It is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, moved to England. Who it's for: those who like quiet, measured films that think about death. Who it's not for: anyone who has just watched Ikiru; this version is shorter and more polite.