When people first meet the love of their life in the movies, it's usually by happenstance. The idea of connecting with someone spontaneously, them crashing into your world and forever altering the course of both your lives, is an alluring hook around which to build your film. In We Live in Time, however, this is taken in a slightly different direction.
Specifically, it involves one half of this love story crashing into the other with their car.
The one getting hit is Andrew Garfield's Tobias, and the one doing the hitting is Florence Pugh's Almut, which leads to the duo meeting in a hospital, getting a bite to eat, then (of course) falling in love. After this vehicular meet-cute, life, as it so often does, has other plans for them both, as the time they have together may be shorter than either could've ever predicted.
Yes, We Live in Time is a film about a partner dealing with a terminal illness, but it's also about the moments in time that echo into each other in ways we can only fully understand looking backwards. Told in a nonlinear fashion, with the future crashing into the past and vice versa, the jumbling around all serves a more poetic purpose. Each cut ensures snapshots that occur years prior feel right next to ones near the end of a life. It is a film about both condensing time and expanding it, replicating the way memories we hold onto or even wish to forget stick with us over our lives.
As directed by John Crowley, who previously made the solid romantic period drama Brooklyn, it's a film whose overall portrait is elevated by the way each scene is constructed in isolation. It unabashedly tugs on the heartstrings, but also eschews cheesy sentimentality. The characters disagree about foundational aspects of life, leaving lingering questions that often go unanswered.
As such, it can feel like pieces are missing in terms of how the couple evolves, almost as if there is much being left offscreen so that juxtapositions and changes are more noticeable. That said, there is plenty that hits home. It isn't the most ambitious of love stories by any means, but the way small scenes speak to each other across years, even one as deceptively simple as cracking an egg, creates greater resonances.
Having two great performers doesn't hurt either. If you were to try to have the film hinge on a duo of even the slightest lesser caliber than Pugh and Garfield, you could easily see it collapse. For every moment where it can feel a little more shaky or shallow in terms of the writing, their more layered performances always give proceedings the greater emotional spark the film needs. Their chemistry, both charming and comedic, is completely earned.
Though it doesn't always find as much depth as it could have surrounding complicated questions it raises about legacy, ambition, and what we leave behind, Pugh is the force that holds it all together. In many regards, it can feel like Garfield is a supporting character the longer We Live in Time goes on, as we focus on Almut's life apart from him. This ultimately works out just fine as it's the more thematically rich part of the film and the way it connects back together makes for a fitting finale. It still leaves plenty of elements hanging, but it gets at how life, inevitably, will always be full of unfinished goals and unanswered questions.
What we can be glad about is that these two kids hit it off as they did, leading to bruised bones and cracked eggs, and we got to journey along with them. Theirs is a love that I hope we all get to have at some point in time. Just make sure you still look both ways before crossing the street or you may miss it.♦
We Live in Time
