Living

This spare, moving British drama about a stodgy bureaucrat who tries to turn over a new leaf earned Oscar nominations for star Bill Nighy and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro.

The story of “Living” has had quite an international journey. It’s based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film “Ikiru,” about a faceless bureaucrat who wants to do one meaningful thing before he dies, which in turn is an adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy novella, “ The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”

Bill Nighy takes on the leading role in a career-capper that just earned a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Screenerwriter Kazuo Ishiguro also received an Academy nod for his skillful adaptation.

The tale centers on Rodney Williams, the head of a small public works bureaucracy in post World War II London. Mr. Williams is efficient and polite, though he very much follows the model of the British stiff upper lip and is not especially warmhearted to those in his department. He’s the sort of boss you don’t hate, but perhaps fear just a little bit.

He is also not a very dedicated public servant, perfectly content to take some project people are passionate about and stick it into a filing tray to be quietly forgotten. “We can keep it here. It can do no harm,” is his standard reply. One such recent plea is to turn a flooded cesspool in a working-class section of town into a small playground for local families.

We get the sense Mr. Williams (no one calls him Rodney) may have once been young and passionate, but the doldrums of the bureaucracy have worn him down to the point he has stopped resisting, and assimilated.

I’m not giving anything away by stating that early on, Mr. Williams receives a dire medical diagnosis. It sends him into a shock, and he soon simply stops showing up at his office. His underlings assume he is ill, though don’t know the extent of his ailment. They carry on in the manner he has sort forth with his expectations.

One exception is Margaret Harris, an exuberant young woman fairly new to the department played by Aimee Lou Wood. She is perplexed why they aren’t doing more to make good things come to pass.

She unexpectedly bumps into Mr. Williams during his unofficial hiatus, he invites her to lunch and a movie, they get to talking and a spark is struck. Not a romantic one, though this is Margaret’s initial fear and one we might assume. Rather, it’s that to Mr. Williams she represents the youthful zest for life that has seemingly been drained from him.

He eventually returns to work and, without even so much as a word of explanation about his long absence, sets about to make that park a reality.

I guess you could still call it a romance, though the love that is kindled is Mr. Williams rediscovering his place in life as more than stodgy paper-pusher.

Nighy offers a master class in understated performance. Behind Mr. Williams’ haughtiness resides a shy, awkward man who has stopped looking for himself in the mirror.

Even when Mr. Williams makes his turn, he does not suddenly turn into a joyful idiot kicking his heels and making a display. He’s still reserved and taciturn. But now there is a glint of determination in is eye and the hint of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Living” is a small, spare story about very big things. It’s an autumnal look at a life that may be nearing its end but is still capable of blooming.