As its title subtly suggests, Living is all about seizing the day. This adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s much-admired 1952 film Ikiru was itself inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s The Death Of Ivan Ilyich. Working from a screenplay by Nobel Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, South African director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) puts his own distinctive mark on the material with a tonally sedate, devastatingly sad film that could hardly be more visually dynamic.

^{Bill Nighy and Aimee Lou Wood in Living}

Set in the 1950s, Living follows veteran London County Council bureaucrat Mr Williams (Bill Nighy), a mere shadow of a man whose air of melancholy has an unfortunate effect on those around him. He sucks the joy from his workplace and the home he shares with his son Michael (Barney Fishwick) and dreadful daughter-in-law Fiona (Patsy Ferran). When he finds out he is dying, with just months left on this planet, Williams decides to live a little; the only problem is he doesn’t know how. In his quest, this forlorn figure is assisted by his sparky young colleague Margaret (Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood) and, during a seaside jaunt, Tom Burke’s hedonistic writer Sutherland.

With its inspired take on the daily commute, Living cleverly relays the rituals, routines and oppressive expectations of that era, and shines a compassionate spotlight on the humdrum existence of a man whose happiness has, over time, simply been chipped away. Hermanus’ attention to detail is admirable, spectacular even, but the structure of Living’s concluding scenes seems contrived and a tad clunky, with some estimable nuance getting lost in its efforts to deliver an emotional sucker punch of an ending. Nighy, nevertheless, is transfixing throughout, turning in an extraordinarily poignant performance that will resonate far and wide in a film whose ultimate message feels very important indeed. 

In cinemas from Friday 4 November.