Bill Nighy's memorable turn in 'Living'

   If a doctor, heaven forbid, were to tell Bill Nighy that his demise was imminent, we’d expect a clever retort or a subtle response that resisted turning the moment into high-stakes drama. Nighy has become an actor we feel we know.

   Of course, I have no idea how Nighy might respond to such devastating news, but in Living, Nighy plays a dying character whose emotions are expressed in ways that are bravely undemonstrative. 

   Nighy plays Mr. Williams, a bureaucrat in London’s Public Works Department. He’s a widowed commuter whose life, as he says at one point, has avoided either happiness or misery.

   Mr. Williams lives in the suburbs with his son (Barney Fishwick) and daughter in-law (Patsy Ferran) and governs his life with structured routine. If it’s “picture day,” Mr. Williams goes to the movies. 

   As the supervisor of a small group of paper pushers, Mr. Williams focuses on the stack of paperwork before him, reacting unemotionally to the bureaucratic buck passing that unfolds when his agency is asked to approve construction of a small playground. 

   The movie begins by introducing us to Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp),  the newest member of the Public Works team.  Unbent by years of service, Wakeling questions what the others long have accepted — the absurd workings of a procedure-crazed government agency.

    Aimee Lou Wood portrays Margaret Harris, a young woman who, unlike her colleagues, seems not have lost touch with the rhythms of life. Not surprisingly, she has accepted a job at a restaurant, where she hopes to ascend into management.

   An English-language remake of Ikira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952), Living benefits from the stiff constraints that, in this movie, define  London life during the 1950s, the period when the story takes place. 

   The story's development hinges on what only can be described as Mr. William’s quiet rebellion.

   Once told that he’s dying, Mr. Williams stops going to work. He  travels to a beach town where he encounters a footloose fellow (Tom Burke) who tries to introduce him to the local pleasures.

   Mr. Williams doesn’t return to work, but a chance encounter in London with Miss Harris leads him to an attempt at capturing a bit of life before it’s too late. And, no, we’re not talking about a misguided sexual encounter.

    Working from a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, director Oliver Hermanus can’t blot out every trace of sentimentality, but Nighy’s restraint makes it clear that Mr. Williams is not the sort of fellow ever to gush and his performance serves to characterize the movie. When Mr. Williams lets down his hair, it’s strictly one strand at a time. 

   Nighy creates a memorable portrait of a decent man who has lived a dreary life but who comes to understand that small gains must be savored, perhaps because for him (as for most of us) that might be all there is.

'Never Let Me Go': sensitive -- but remote

Mulligan, Knightely and Garfield in a rare happy moment.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel, Never Let Me Go, seemed an unlikely candidate for big-screen adaptation. That hasn’t stopped director Mark Romaneck, working from a screenplay by novelist Alex Garland, from attempting to bring Ishiguro’s carefully calibrated novel to the screen.

If ever a movie wanted to be taken seriously, it’s Never Let Me Go. Tastefully made, quietly presented and bathed in arty attitudes, Never Let Me Go look as if has been tailored for art-house consumption.

That's not necessarily a bad ambition, but too much of the time, the movie proceeds as if in a trance, unfolding in languid fashion while suggesting deeper meanings that, upon reflection, may not seem quite so deep.

The movie’s problem may be simple: Ishiguro told the story as a first person account from a 31-year-old woman named Kathy, played here by Carey Mulligan. Kathy recounted her days in school with strange precision and with ominous hints about what might be in store for her and her classmates.

Despite the intermittent use of an off-screen narration delivered by Mulligan, the story deadens when viewed from the outside, the only perspective an audience has. That’s why some of its most heartbreaking moments don’t drip with emotion.

I’m not sure that Never Let Me Go can be written about without spoilers. All I’ll say is that the three main characters are not facing a happy future. They’re also involved in a mild love triangle. Both Kathy and Ruth (Keira Knightley) are taken with Tommy (Andrew Garfield). Followed through stages of their lives, these three act like normal kids, then inquisitive teenagers and finally young adults. No matter how ordinary they seem, a sense of quiet strangeness surrounds them.

No faulting the performances, but Never Let Me Go winds up feeling as remote as it is finely honed. The more we learn, the more we wonder why none of the characters bothers to rail against his or her lot in life, something I didn’t feel while reading the novel. Maybe that’s the point Romaneck (One Hour Photo) is trying to make: He’s telling us about the way powerlessness is bred into people. And I suppose it’s true that most of us accept things the way they are. Our minds can be as gray as the sweaters worn by the students at Hailsham, the school where much of the story -- perhaps its best parts -- is set.

If you see Never Let Me go, you’ll realize that the movie has a sci-fi connection: Romaneck (like Ishiguro) probably wanted to play down the sci-fi aspects of his story and raise a philosophical question that can’t be stated here without spoiling more of the movie.

All I can say is that at the point at which my heart should have been breaking, I felt as I’d fallen into a kind of trance. The movie ultimately seems purposed to serve as an arty encouragement, a call to embrace life to the fullest because death looms for one and all.

It’s a lesson this artful, sensitive but emotionally reticent movie would have done well to heed.