“We Live in Time” - TIFF24 Film Review
This review was originally posted on Film Obsessive.
We Live in Time, the latest feature from John Crowley, had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The film had buzz long before shooting even began, thanks to the lead actors: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield. It’s the first time they’ve shared the screen with each other, but based on the reception at the festival, there’s hope they will become the 2020s version of the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks duo we so desperately need to bring back romantic comedies. Calling We Live in Time a romantic comedy however, may give people the wrong impression because more than one heartstring is tugged in a masterful, lovely way.
There is no linear storytelling in We Live in Time. The film jumps around to different points in the relationship between Almut (Pugh) and Tobias (Garfield). They meet in a way that’s probably only possible on the silver screen: Almut hits Tobias with her car. She stays with him in the hospital until he wakes up and then invites him to visit her newly-opened restaurant. He’s dazed and already a little in love, so he agrees. Their relationship spans the honeymoon phase, a child, and Almut’s cancer diagnosis.
Another version of We Live in Time would have veered toward tragedy porn. Whether from consuming media or from personal experience, audiences know that when cancer is introduced, a happy ending will not happen. Going into We Live in Time, the audience has a good idea of how things are going to end, but the same can be said about life. We all know how it’s going to go, what’s waiting for us at the end of the line (although there are some disagreements about after), so where does that leave us except hurtling toward inevitability? “I’d rather have quality than quantity,” Almut says to Tobias. She knows her months are numbered and, to Almut, six great months are better than twelve agonizing ones spent in a hospital undergoing treatments that may not work.
Courtesy of TIFF
We Live in Time hits all of the expected beats of this type of film: the meet cute, the big fight, the tragedy, and the love of it all. However, the film doesn’t feel as though it’s only a rehash of what came before. That’s mostly thanks to Pugh and Garfield’s enigmatic chemistry. When a film jumps around in time to show moments of a relationship out of order, it can be frustrating, because the audience may not understand what it is that draws the two characters together. In the case of Almut and Tobias, it’s obvious from their first scene. The audience witnesses the gravitational force that brings them together because it’s the same thing that’s bringing us into the movie. You want to live among their smiles, their embraces, and their joy, even knowing how it ends.
Isn’t that what we all must do? Find the people who make our lives brighter and hold onto them for as long as we can. Time is relentless. We always want more of it, but we aren’t in control of the amount of time we are given. We Live in Time has moments where it falls into the traps of its genre, and the audience is acutely aware of that. The first fight we see between Almut and Tobias in the beginning of their relationship feels melodramatic. For two actors who are excellent in subtlety, that scene stood out as a moment where the sheen drops and We Live in Time loses the magnetism of the duo at the center of it all.
It’s refreshing to see a romantic, dramatic film where the characters seem as real as these do. Some may feel that Tobias is a little underdeveloped and, when compared to Almut, he does have fewer plot points on his own. The main thing we know about Tobias is that he desperately wants to be a father and a partner. He works a full-time job in data management, but it’s clear it’s only a paycheck to him. Perhaps he feels underdeveloped to some because it’s a role we’re not used to seeing men play in films. His life is his family, and that’s enough for him. It creates a bit of conflict between the couple because that’s not how Almut wants to be defined. She wants her daughter to know her as a full person, beyond being a mother. Neither is presented as the proper course of action, but it explains the tension between the two.
The duo of Pugh and Garfield also allows Nick Payne’s script to shine. We Live in Time has its absurd moments, but they feel grounded because of the actors at play. It’s a balancing act that isn’t often managed in this type of film, but We Live in Time gives the audience as many laughs as it does tears. It’s a lovingly crafted ode to this weird thing called life and those we are lucky enough to share it with.
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