Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 2022

The Contenders:

Paul Mescal: Aftersun
Colin Farrell: The Banshees of Inisherin
Austin Butler: Elvis
Bill Nighy: Living
Brendan Fraser: The Whale (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2022

The Contenders:

All Quiet on the Western Front
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Living
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking (winner)

The Cure for Quiet Desperation

Film: Living
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

Of all of the Oscar nominations, aside from the Avatar sequel, none worried me as much as Living. The original Kurosawa film, Ikiru, is a masterpiece, and I’m always leery about watching a remake of a film that is genuinely one of the best films of its decade, of its genre, and of its national cinema. Ikiru is a beautiful story, tragic and sad but hopeful and uplifting at the same time. It’s a remarkable piece of work, and don’t know that it can be improved upon. And yet, here we are.

What I’ve discovered here is that Living, while very clearly based on the same story as Kurosawa’s film, is also a very different take on that story. The skeleton of the story is exactly the same, as are many of the details. It is, ultimately, a very good remake of the base story. I remember some of Ikiru quite differently than this, especially toward the end, but no matter.