Trailer
Plot summary
In the midst of rehearsals for a new play, amateur dramatics proponents Colin and Kathryn receive the shattering news that their friend George is fatally ill and only has a few months to live.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Life of Riley (2014)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Life of Riley won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize and the Fipresci International Critics Prize at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival, but Alain Resnais was too frail to attend the festival in person and died less than three weeks later.
- Budget constraints stopped Alain Resnais building full sets, so he recalled a teenage staging of Chekhov's The Seagull in which Georges Pitoëff used pieces of fabric; designer Jacques Saulnier then made painted curtains and simple props to stand in for gardens, trees and house facades.
- Alain Resnais took the film's title, Aimer, boire et chanter, from a waltz by Johann Strauss II that plays between scenes; a French vocal version with words by Lucien Boyer, sung by tenor Georges Thill, runs over the final credits.
- Each scene change in the film is introduced by a sketch of the setting drawn by the cartoonist and graphic artist Blutch, mixed with travelling shots of the roads and lanes of Yorkshire.
