# Living (2022 film)
**Living** is a 2022 British drama film directed by [Oliver Hermanus](https://www.edgepedia.org/oliver-hermanus), with a screenplay by the novelist [Kazuo Ishiguro](https://www.edgepedia.org/kazuo-ishiguro), that adapts [Akira Kurosawa](https://www.edgepedia.org/akira-kurosawa)'s 1952 Japanese film *Ikiru* (生きる, "To Live") to 1950s London. Bill Nighy plays Mr. Williams, a veteran London civil servant who, after learning he has a fatal illness, sets out to find meaning in his remaining months.[1](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/living) • [2](https://www.cineman.ch/en/movie/2022/Living/press.html?setlang=en)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / screenwriter | Oliver Hermanus; screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro[1](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/living) |
| Source | English-language adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's *Ikiru* (1952), itself credited to Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni[1](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/living) • [3](https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/living-2022.pdf) |
| Setting | London, 1953, in the bureaucracy rebuilding after World War II[4](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/living) |
| Lead cast | Bill Nighy (Williams), Aimee Lou Wood (Margaret Harris), Alex Sharp (Peter Wakeling), Tom Burke[1](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/living) |
| Running time | 102 minutes[1](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/living) |
| Festivals | World premiere at Sundance 2022; official selections at Venice, Toronto, and BFI London 2022[1](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/living) |
| Academy Awards | Two nominations at the 95th Oscars: Best Actor (Nighy) and Best Adapted Screenplay[5](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/living) • [6](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2023) |
| Critical scores | Metascore 81 from 40 reviews; 96% on Rotten Tomatoes from 222 reviews[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/living/) • [8](https://static.rottentomatoes.com/m/living_2022) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Williams ([Bill Nighy](https://www.edgepedia.org/bill-nighy)) is a senior civil servant in postwar London's Public Works Department, a man reduced by years of office routine to what one press synopsis calls a "shadow existence."[9](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.filmtrackonline.com/mongrelmedia/starcm_vault_root/media%2Fpublicwebassets%2FLIVING_Mongrel_press_kit_%7B61aa39c5-7be3-ec11-a9dd-0edcbcd33718%7D.pdf) His department's specialty, in the Sight & Sound reviewer's description, is shunting public requests to other departments in "an endless round of polite buck-passing."[10](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/living-remake-that-can-stand-with-original) A petition from a group of women from Chester Street asking for a children's playground on a bombsite has already circulated through planning, parks, and cleansing and sewage before returning to his desk, where he files it away.[11](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/06/living-review-kazuo-ishiguro-elegantly-adapts-1950s-mortality-tale)
When Williams learns he has stomach cancer and only months to live, he begins taking stock of a life that has felt empty and meaningless.[2](https://www.cineman.ch/en/movie/2022/Living/press.html?setlang=en) • [4](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/living) For the first time in his career he skips work, spends an evening of mild debauchery in Brighton with a raffish writer ([Tom Burke](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-burke)) he meets by chance, and is encouraged by Margaret Harris ([Aimee Lou Wood](https://www.edgepedia.org/aimee-lou-wood)), the only woman in his department, to do something that will stand as his legacy.[2](https://www.cineman.ch/en/movie/2022/Living/press.html?setlang=en) • [10](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/living-remake-that-can-stand-with-original) That something turns out to be the playground the bureaucracy had refused, which he pushes through from his own desk.[2](https://www.cineman.ch/en/movie/2022/Living/press.html?setlang=en)
## Origin and rights
The project began with Ishiguro, who described the idea as an obsession dating to his childhood: a Japanese boy growing up in England, he had been fixated on *Ikiru* from the age of eleven or twelve and long imagined a British version set just after World War II.[12](https://nationalboardofreview.org/2022/12/qa-with-oliver-hermanus-kazuo-ishiguro-and-bill-nighy/) The idea surfaced at a small dinner gathering with producers Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen of Number 9 Films; Bill Nighy, who was expected at dinner but arrived late, heard the proposal that night, and Woolley persuaded the reluctant Ishiguro to attempt the screenplay himself.[12](https://nationalboardofreview.org/2022/12/qa-with-oliver-hermanus-kazuo-ishiguro-and-bill-nighy/) • [13](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/preview/2022/11/01/living/)
Securing the English-language remake rights was the first obstacle. Number 9 had to deal with Japan's Toho and the Kurosawa estate, whose rights had earlier been optioned at a high price for a [Steven Spielberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/steven-spielberg) project with [Tom Hanks](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-hanks) that never went forward. The estate became more amenable once the screenwriter's name was mentioned, but a signed letter was not enough; Ishiguro recorded a short video in his kitchen introducing himself and the project.[14](https://www.screendaily.com/features/living-team-talk-bill-nighy-positivity-and-how-they-nabbed-ikiru-rights/5177581.article)
Ishiguro and Woolley had agreed to look for a non-British director to give an outsider's view of the period, and after an unnamed American director stalled through a two-year option window, they chose the South African-born Oliver Hermanus, whose previous features included *Moffie* (2019). Film4 backed the idea, and Hermanus collaborated with Ishiguro on further drafts during the pandemic.[14](https://www.screendaily.com/features/living-team-talk-bill-nighy-positivity-and-how-they-nabbed-ikiru-rights/5177581.article) • [15](https://www.sundance.org/blogs/living-reminds-us-to-embrace-the-present-and-the-unknown/)
## Production and reception
The film was produced by Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley for Number 9 Films, with Film4 as production company and Rocket Science as sales agent; Ko Kurosawa served as executive producer.[1](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/living) Hermanus shot in County Hall, where the [London County Council](https://www.edgepedia.org/london-county-council) the film depicts was actually located, and the creative team included cinematographer Jamie Ramsay, production designer Helen Scott, and costume designer Sandy Powell.[10](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/living-remake-that-can-stand-with-original) • [9](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.filmtrackonline.com/mongrelmedia/starcm_vault_root/media%2Fpublicwebassets%2FLIVING_Mongrel_press_kit_%7B61aa39c5-7be3-ec11-a9dd-0edcbcd33718%7D.pdf)
Critics received the film warmly. Its Metascore of 81 from 40 reviews is categorized as "universal acclaim," with 37 positive reviews, 3 mixed, and none negative.[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/living/) Reviewers singled out Nighy's restrained performance: the *Wall Street Journal* called it "magnificent in its restraint and eloquent in its sparseness of words," and *Empire* called the film "a rare remake that only augments and enriches the original."[16](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/living/critic-reviews/) Sight & Sound's Philip Kemp judged that Hermanus and Ishiguro had brought off the risky undertaking of remaking a beloved classic, "if not quite to perfection, at least very close."[10](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/living-remake-that-can-stand-with-original) At the 95th Academy Awards, held 12 March 2023, Nighy was nominated for Best Actor and Ishiguro for Best Adapted Screenplay.[6](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2023)
## Relationship to Ikiru
*Ikiru* (1952) was the first film Kurosawa co-wrote with the screenwriters Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, and it tells of a terminally ill Tokyo bureaucrat deciding how to live out his final days in postwar Japan.[17](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/10060) • [18](https://www.viennale.at/en/film/living) Ishiguro's adaptation keeps the same period and closely shadows the shape and tone of the original while transposing it to London; the screenplay credits the original to Kurosawa, Hashimoto, and Oguni.[10](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/living-remake-that-can-stand-with-original) • [3](https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/living-2022.pdf) Ishiguro explained the choice of era by pointing to what the two postwar societies shared: Kurosawa's team wrote without knowing whether Japan would recover, while he, writing with hindsight, could frame Williams's small achievement as part of Britain's postwar rebuilding, including the welfare state and the [National Health Service](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-health-service).[12](https://nationalboardofreview.org/2022/12/qa-with-oliver-hermanus-kazuo-ishiguro-and-bill-nighy/) Commentators have also traced the story's deeper lineage to [Leo Tolstoy](https://www.edgepedia.org/leo-tolstoy)'s 1886 novella *[The Death of Ivan Ilyich](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-death-of-ivan-ilyich)*, though one critic noted that *Living* is even further removed from the novella than Kurosawa's film.[19](https://etypeproductionstorage1.blob.core.windows.net/%24web/Production_Prod/Jobs/82/2023-01-25/325511/PreProcessedPDF/ac_321854_prep_20230125195644599.pdf)
## References
1. [Living, British Council UK Films Database](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/living)
2. [Living press text, Cineman](https://www.cineman.ch/en/movie/2022/Living/press.html?setlang=en)
3. [Living, final screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro](https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/living-2022.pdf)
4. [Living (2022), JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/living)
5. [LIVING, Sony Pictures Entertainment](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/living)
6. [The 95th Academy Awards, Oscars.org](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2023)
7. [Living Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/living/)
8. [Living (2022), Rotten Tomatoes](https://static.rottentomatoes.com/m/living_2022)
9. [Living press kit, Mongrel Media](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.filmtrackonline.com/mongrelmedia/starcm_vault_root/media%2Fpublicwebassets%2FLIVING_Mongrel_press_kit_%7B61aa39c5-7be3-ec11-a9dd-0edcbcd33718%7D.pdf)
10. [Living: a remake that can stand with the original, Sight and Sound (BFI)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/living-remake-that-can-stand-with-original)
11. [Living review, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/06/living-review-kazuo-ishiguro-elegantly-adapts-1950s-mortality-tale)
12. [Living – Q&A with Oliver Hermanus, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Bill Nighy, National Board of Review](https://nationalboardofreview.org/2022/12/qa-with-oliver-hermanus-kazuo-ishiguro-and-bill-nighy/)
13. [Living, BFI Southbank Programme Notes](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/preview/2022/11/01/living/)
14. [Living team talk Bill Nighy, positivity and how they nabbed Ikiru rights, Screen Daily](https://www.screendaily.com/features/living-team-talk-bill-nighy-positivity-and-how-they-nabbed-ikiru-rights/5177581.article)
15. [Living Reminds Us to Embrace the Present and the Unknown, Sundance.org](https://www.sundance.org/blogs/living-reminds-us-to-embrace-the-present-and-the-unknown/)
16. [Living critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/living/critic-reviews/)
17. [Ikiru, Japanese Film Database (JFDB)](https://jfdb.jp/en/title/10060)
18. [Living, Viennale](https://www.viennale.at/en/film/living)
19. [Living and The Death of Ivan Ilyich, syndicated review PDF](https://etypeproductionstorage1.blob.core.windows.net/%24web/Production_Prod/Jobs/82/2023-01-25/325511/PreProcessedPDF/ac_321854_prep_20230125195644599.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2020 to 2022*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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