LIVING-Starring Bill Nighy is a Comatose Film

The film LIVING starring the always entertaining Bill Nighy, is a sleepy drama that asks the viewer to wake up and smell the coffee.  I suggest drinking coffee before watching or risk sleeping through this somnambulant story that offers a moral meant to be inspiring.  Unfortunately, the movie never lives up to its intent and offers little to endorse other than a superb cast.  Nighy (Mr. Williams) is a distinguished English gentleman, soft-spoken and revered by his small office staff.  The lovely cinematography paints a monotonous pan quotidian of the comings and goings of office workers in London that flows like clockwork.  It feels like minutes, if not hours pass before there's any spark of life to light up the doldrums.  Williams informs his staff he will be leaving work early (a rare anomaly).  The reason being, he has a Dr.'s appointment.  His physician informs him his cancer has returned.  The Dr, regrets to inform him he has less than a year to live.  This information is received with the grace and decorum that befits Williams.  Williams returns to the home he shares with his son and daughter-in-law.  While waiting in the darkening parlor, Williams has a few pleasing flashbacks of his childhood and his deceased wife.  When his son and his wife return, they're startled to find him seated in the dark.  Williams asks to speak to his son before he retires with his wife.  But, the two seem to be stuck in a pattern of unspoken, missed opportunities for connection.  The first person Williams shares his fatal prognosis is a complete stranger whom he overhears talking of his passion for theatre.  Williams beseeches the young writer to accompany him for a lively evening of entertainment.  The evening turns into a night of pub drinking culminating in a bawdy burlesque show.  Despite the pulsating energy from young crowds, the night is shrouded in melancholy.  The moroseness of loneliness, regrets and longings is palpable.  The following morning, Williams is spotted in a park by the young woman who works for him, Margaret (a luminous Aimee Lou Wood).  Williams impulsively invites her to lunch.  Margaret becomes the second person he confides his fate and his unfilled yearnings for embracing a richer life.  In his last few months at work, Williams makes it a mission to ensure a small playground is built for his constituents that have been given the round around.  The screenplay is by the Nobel Prize winner for literature, Kazoo Ishiguro ("Remains of the Day").  Ishiguro's signature trope for living outside the scope of one's best life are imprinted upon LIVING.  I suggest doing something more fulfilling than watching LIVING; carpi diem.