It’s not hard to spend a few hours watching Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield fall and be in love. In “We Live In Time,” filmmaker John Crowley puts the audience up close and personal with this photogenic British couple through the highs and lows of a relationships in their 30s.
Everyone starts to think about the idea of time, and not having enough of it to do everything they want, at some point. But it seems to hit a lot of us very acutely in that tricky, lovely third decade. There’s that cruel biological clock, of course, but also careers and homes and families getting older. Throw a cancer diagnosis in there and that timer gets ever more aggressive. While we, and Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh), do indeed live in time, as we’re constantly reminded in big and small ways — clocks and stopwatches are ever-present, literally and metaphorically — the movie hovers above it. The storytelling jumps back and forth through time like a scattershot memory as we piece together these lives that intersect in an elaborate, mystical and darkly comedic way: Almut runs into Tobias with her car.
Their first chat is in a hospital hallway, with those glaring fluorescent lights and him bruised and cut all over. But he’s so struck by this beautiful woman in front of him, he barely seems to care.
I suppose this could be considered a Lubitschian “meet-cute” even if it knowingly pushes the boundaries of our understanding of that romance trope. Before the hit, Tobias was in a hotel, attempting to sign divorce papers and his pens were out of ink and pencils kept breaking. In a fit of near-mania he leaves, wearing only his bathrobe, to go to a corner store and buy more. Walking back, he drops something in the street and bang: A new relationship is born. It’s the ultimate metaphor for the out-of-body vulnerability required to fall in love.
There are several moments of mania that await both, particularly around a baby that just isn’t ready to come out yet — until it is and they’re nowhere near the hospital. I won’t ruin it, but it is one of the funnier, more emotional and memorable birthing scenes I’ve ever seen on screen. It’s one of those scenes where you don’t expect tears, but there they are.
Speaking of tears, there is a certain expectation, or assumption, that a movie like “We Live In Time” is going to leave you a wreck, heaving with full body sobs. This was not my experience. Tear count is not exactly a science or even a reliable metric for quality: There have been truly bad movies that have had that effect and great ones that haven’t. But it did leave me wondering why, especially considering how Crowley knocked it out of the park with “Brooklyn.”
Nick Payne’s script also leaves some things to be desired, especially in its fleshing out of Almut. By 34 she’s already a Michelin-starred chef and has a whole past life of athletic success that we learn about. And yet early in her relationship with Tobias when he asks her if she wants kids, she flips. Now, there are bad ways to approach this topic with women, but her response felt unnatural, especially considering that it’s entirely reasonable that adults who are getting serious have this conversation early.
Instead, he’s the one who comes back and apologizes. Her decisions throughout are a little curious and will likely inspire some post screening chats.
The eventual child is also little more than a beautiful prop, with no spark or personality. We never see a tantrum, or a need or want from her that doesn’t keep the adult story chugging along. She is simply a shorthand for what will be left behind if Almut does not win the cancer fight.
The main reason to see “We Live In Time” is not the promise of crying or the realities of having a young kid, though, but the quietly affecting performances from Pugh and Garfield, who seems to fit right into the nice guy mold we’re all celebrating now thanks to Adam Brody’s Hot Rabbi. It is charming and silly and sometimes cringey — other people’s relationships always are— and in the end it works exceedingly well because of them and their wonderful chemistry.
“We Live in Time,” an A24 release in New York and Los Angeles Friday and nationwide Oct. 18, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “language, sexuality and nudity.” Running time: 107 minutes. Three stars out of four.