Bill Nighy gives a stellar performance that is subtle, understated and remarkably effective as a terminally ill man going through the motions in a job that doesn’t appear to have any real purpose until he’s inspired to change. The film moves slowly at first, but Nighy managed to draw us in when we first saw the film at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Rodney Williams (Nighy) is an elderly bureaucrat in a very staid, formal London public works office with too many guidelines and plenty of papers that get pushed around. When Rodney gets bad news that he is going to die, he starts to reevaluate without telling his family, his colleagues, nor anyone about his diagnosis.
He gets sleeping medicine, intending to commit suicide without telling his son and daughter-in-law. When he can’t bring himself to take the pills, he gives the pills to a writer he meets in a restaurant who is an insomniac and the two go on a bender. Rodney becomes completely unlike the somber being he usually is, now singing old songs from his childhood in a pub.
Rodney takes some time off to think things through. A happy accident occurs when he comes back. He bumps into young former female co-worker, Miss Harris (Aimee Lou Wood, ) at a cafe. They engage in conversation where she makes him aware that what they do in that office is not as important as other things going on in their little corner of the world. There’s a vacant lot that needed approval to be turned into a playground, but the paperwork for the permit keeps being placed at the bottom of the pile, stalled forever. His young friend lets him know why it’s important and the conversation makes him think.
When he prods his boss to push it up the pile, he’s rebuffed, so he starts thinking what he might be able to do about it. He continues meeting with this young girl from his office, but it’s always very proper. You see how much he enjoys her company, but only as a friend and colleague. Yet, she changes his life.
This premise has a long history. Oliver Hermanus directs this film brilliantly. It is based on a screenplay by Nobel Prize winning author, Kazuo Ishiguro, that was adapted from the famous director Akira Kurosawa’s film, Ikuru released in 1952. And Kurosawa was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s Russian novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich written in 1886!
Nighy as Rodney Williams, is understated in this role, which makes him even more effective. He subtly transforms from a boring bureaucrat to someone with purpose. Without letting anyone else know what he’s up to, he maintains his distant self to his family and co-workers.
Someone tells his son Michael about seeing his father in the company of a young woman and the fun begins. But even more satisfying is seeing Nighy playing Rodney as a man slowly coming out of his shell.
Hermanus directing Nighy’s poignant performance moves the film slowly at first, until Aimee Lou Wood comes on the scene. She is the light of this film showing how a random conversation can inspire a lasting legacy.
Sony Pictures Classics. 1 hour 42 minutes. PG-13
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