
After Norman fails to convince his father, a wealthy industrialist, with his brilliant business idea in the form of a chain of doughnut shops, the hopeful young entrepreneur is given an old tenement house to help him get started. He infiltrates the building incognito and finds a job as the unpopular houseboy. Norman realizes that all is not well with the quirky residents when he finds a dead Santa Claus from last year in the fireplace.
For one widowed father and his five kids, an extraordinary gift will change their lives forever.
Adapted from a 2014 novel by Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life is the feature film debut of documentary filmmaker Bing Liu. With the help of screenwriter Martyna Majok, he paints a realistic and somber portrayal of Aishe, a Uyghur immigrant, as she struggles to make a living while undocumented in the United States.
A film loosely based on the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, with major twists to the original story.
The fun tricks used in the production design and lighting read extremely well on-screen but hardly fulfill their purpose of trying to inject glamour into a lack-luster story with nothing to say.
'Living' dives into many themes that we can all understand regardless of our cultural backgrounds. We can see this through the shared similarities between 'Ikiru' and 'Living'.