We Live in Time, the Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh team-up we’ve eagerly been waiting for, is a heartstring-pulling weep-fest.
Specifically, to the extent that my tears rolled down my cheeks and reached my neck – and that’s not usually the case.
In truth, I am a cry-baby – easily reduced to tears by the news or a cheesy montage – but it’s not often I find my collar wet afterwards.
And given that assessment, I think that even the harder hearted among us will ‘get something in their eye’ a couple of times over the course of the film.
Garfield and Pugh are as dreamy a team as you’d hope playing Almut and Tobias, a couple with the slightly unusual meet-cute of a road accident who navigate the beautiful highs and devastating lows of life together.
Not only do they utterly convince as a couple with an easy and relaxed chemistry, but they also convince as real people forging a life together. I mean, Tobias works for Weetabix in IT! And he’s dealing with a divorce.
Pugh, meanwhile – as a keen foodie in real life – plays a chef and restaurant owner on the rise, which sees her woo Tobias with her ‘tiny Bavarian sausage’ after the car crash.
It’s no secret that Almut is diagnosed with cancer during we Live in Time, but what has been kept under wraps is how much the movie is about everything else too: the bigger questions, the complicated and messy feelings, and the tough decisions that have to be made. And that comes into play during other major milestones and challenges in their relationship as well which will be relatable to many.
Gifted playwright Nick Payne pens his first original screenplay for We Live in Time, and his knack for empathetic characters and realistic dialogue is evident, even if scenes occasionally veer into territory a touch too simplistic. An argument Almut and Tobias have over kids, for example, descends into a frustrated and semi-constipated repetition of ‘f**k you’ essentially, which may be truthful – but doesn’t really help the audience grasp Almut’s reasoning.
However, it’s mostly sharp and often funny in very endearing way (mostly Garfield) as well as the recognisable way it finds dark humour in the bleakest of times – Almut and Tobias discuss getting a dog for their daughter following the cancer news, but realise they’d need to hasten its death for it to help their three-year-old in the way they want it to.
And without spoiling too much, We Live in Time – directed with a light touch by Crowley (Brooklyn, Garfield’s film debut Boy A) – boasts a brilliantly British birth scene with a lot of muddling through and some fantastic supporting characters.
In terms of the rest of the cast, there are some fabulous personalities for Garfield and Pugh to interact with. I can’t have been the only one hoping for more of Douglas Hodges as Tobias’ sweetly supportive dad. Their close relationship is really touching, as well as entertaining when he gives his son a haircut before he meets Almut at her restaurant for the first time after the accident. He makes the effort to shave Tobias’ neck, something which Almut later compliments – but rather than being a barber, like it’s set up to suggest, it’s later revealed he’s an architect.
Pugh is ostensibly playing the main character things happen to in We Live in Time too, but it’s through Garfield’s Tobias that we meet her, and it’s him that we’re torn up with guilt and sympathy for when she deceives him.
The movie feels like the type of more ‘real’ rom-com that still tackles problems and should be very popular when it’s released – and this is certainly helped along by a gorgeously evocative score from Bryce Dessner.
I did have a few quibbles with We Live in Time though. Pugh appears to be playing above her age, referencing being 34 quite near the start of their relationship – which also means she goes a fair way beyond that – and it doesn’t ring true for the now 28-year-old. Garfield, 41, also implies Tobias and Almut are similar in age, which, again, pulled me out of the film a bit. The discussion could have worked both without an explicit age for Almut being mentioned and with Tobias being pitched as older.
We Live in Time also leaps about in their relationship, telling the story in a non-linear fashion. While this keeps the audience engaged and slowly adding context to the scenes that have gone before, occasionally the film feels a little too tightly edited like it’s glossing over bits that could have been given more room to breathe.
However, it’s a wholesome and touching portrayal of a relationship acted out by two of the UK’s biggest stars right now. And it’s the perfect movie for when you want to sit in your feelings and be taken on an unashamedly emotional journey.