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.

They con their way to laughs

Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson play clashing con artists in The Hustle, a reasonably entertaining comedy.

The Hustle -- a comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson -- remakes 1964's Bedtime Story, a movie that itself was remade as 1988's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a much-praised comedy that starred Michael Caine and Steve Martin. Clearly, the aim here was gender reversal with women taking the lead as dueling con artists locked in a competition meant to tax all their felonious skills.

The comedy derives from a classic oil-on-water clash of personalities that are embodied in Wilson's unashamedly crude Penny and Hathaway's ostentatiously sophisticated Josephine.

Though uneven and burdened by a coda that works against the movie's feminist tilt, the comedy benefits from three attributes: An inviting setting -- Beaumont Sur Mer (a fictional town on the French Riviera) -- and two all-in performances from Hathaway and Wilson.

Clad in costumes that amount to a one-woman fashion show, Hathaway employs a variety of accents, mostly to good comic effect. Wilson adds plenty of ribald energy.

The con jobs carried out by these women aren't especially convincing and a major gag (Wilson's character feigns blindness) flirts with questionable taste, but Hathaway and Wilson work well together and there are enough chuckles to satisfy amusement-hungry appetites.

The story revolves around a competition in which the two women, who are battling for possession of the same luxe turf, try to con a young app developer. Alex Sharp brings gee-golly innocence to his portrayal of a tech whiz with money.

The big gags sometimes feel like examples of sketch humor dropped into the story. At one point, the women wrangle high-priced engagement rings from various marks -- notably, a Texan played by Dean Norris. Penny poses as Josephine's crazy sister, a mad woman who purportedly accompanies any marriage to the lustrous Josephine. Once exposed to Penny, the enticed fiances can't flee quickly enough.

Director Chris Addison doesn't seem to be chasing cinematic history; the movie makes no attempt to conceal its escapist impulses, so even if The Hustle fails to enter the pantheon of great comedy, it proves reasonably entertaining. Moreover, its two stars manage to dispel the aroma of familiarity (what another con-job movie?) that could have put a choke-hold on their efforts.