It’s the start of a new year, and I’m incredibly excited about the coming year. Awards season for the film industry is in full swing. January alone sees UK audiences treated to major cinematic releases including Nosferatu, the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and finally Adrian Brody’s near four-hour epic The Brutalist. However, before we get to any of those movies, we’re kicking things off with a review of We Live In Time!
We Live In Time is a romantic comedy-drama starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. The film explores the relationship between IT consultant Tobias Durand (Andrew Garfield), and chef Almut Brühl (Florence Pugh). Tobias works for the breakfast cereal company Weetabix, while Almut runs a Bavarian-themed restaurant. At the start of the film, the young couple are attending a hospital appointment. Here we learn that Almut has been diagnosed with stage three cancer. As the couple walk through the hospital car park, they engage in a frank conversation. Almut discloses to Tobias her fears about the coming cancer treatment. This includes concerns about how it will negatively impact her quality of life.
The movie then jumps back in time to before Tobias and Almut first meet. Here we learn that Tobias is in the process of finalizing his divorce from his wife. While hunting at night for a pen to sign the divorce papers, Tobias wanders into the middle of the road. Almut accidentally drives into him with her car. She then takes Tobias to the local hospital. This meet-cute leads to Almut offering Tobias a free meal at her restaurant as recompense before the pair become romantically involved. From here the film’s timeline leaps between their sex-filled initial courtship to a complicated pregnancy to Amut’s final diagnosis. This is done via a linear narrative structure.
Starting with the positives, We Live In Time features two strong performances from its lead actors, Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. Andrew Garfield portrays Tobias as an incredibly gentile and understanding individual. Garfield makes incredible use of his expressive and emotive face to convey Tobias’s emotions. He spends much of We Live in Time sporting a forlorn expression with huge, sad puppy-dog-looking eyes that make it nigh on impossible for audiences not to sympathize with Tobias’ character.
Andrew Garfield’s soulful performance contrasts starkly with Florence Pugh’s portrayal of the headstrong Almut. Almut is a spiky and headstrong character, and we see throughout We Live In Time that she is motivated by her passions in life. Florence Pugh is electric in the several scenes where Almut showcases her passion for cookery. Yet Pugh gives Almut a much-needed degree of vulnerability that fleshes out her character.
These contrasting personality traits are best seen in one scene halfway through We Live In Time. This scene involves Almut and Tobias hosting a dinner party where their two families meet for the first time. Viewers learn that Almut was a talented figure skater in her teens. However, this passion for figure skating was extinguished by her father’s tragic death. This scene gives viewers an insight into Almut’s fear of being solely remembered for her family life rather than her professional accomplishments. This fear is a crucial plot point for the final act of We Live In Time.
As great as Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh’s individual performances are, the film comes to life when its two leads are onscreen together. Garfield and Pugh have tremendous chemistry, coming across as a believable and sympathetic couple throughout We Live In Time.
A lacklustre script and derivative direction unfortunately bog down We Live In Time, despite the strength of its two lead performances. As mentioned earlier in this review, the film follows a non-linear structure. The use of a non-linear narrative within the romantic comedy/drama genre is of course not something new. Director Marc Webb brilliantly utilised this technique in the 2009 film (500) Days of Summer. Whereas Marc Webb used this structure to show the highs and lows of a romantic relationship, director John Crowley never fully grasps how best to utilise this storytelling approach. Throughout We Live in Time, we get glimpses of Tobias and Almut’s relationship. But these glimpses are so fleeting, they never really give us an insight into their relationship. I found that this almost mosaic-like approach to storytelling meant I had great difficulty investing in Tobias and Almut as characters.
The other obvious source of inspiration for We Live In Time is the film works of Richard Curtis. The film’s world draws heavy inspiration from the likes of Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. This is in part because the characters in We Live In Time feel decidedly middle-class. The semi-affluent lifestyle that Almut and Tobias enjoy will no doubt appeal to international audiences. However, as a UK citizen, it felt incredibly artificial to me.
My greatest frustration with We Live In Time stems from its main subplot. This plotline involves Almut receiving a mysterious text from her former boss inviting her to compete in the Bocuse d’Or, a prestigious cooking competition referred to in the film as the “Olympics for chefs”. Despite her consultant’s advice to reduce her workload, Almut secretly agrees to participate in the competition. This decision leads to her making a series of questionable life choices. Nick Payne’s script attempts to rationalize Almut’s selfish decision by tying it to the fact that her father passed away when she was a teenager. This life-changing event leaves her with a desire to be remembered as more than just “someone’s dead mum”.
For some viewers, this rationalization may feel justified. For me, it felt very convoluted and was a perfect example of how Nick Payne’s lacklustre scripts tries too hard to emotionally manipulate viewers into caring about his poorly-fleshed-out characters.
In conclusion, We Live In Time is a disappointing addition to the romantic comedy-drama genre. Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield are electric here as a young thirty-something couple dealing with a torturous cancer diagnosis. Sadly, Nick Payne’s clunky script and non-linear narrative never let viewers fully emotionally engage with the film’s two lead characters. In the end, We Live In Time feels like an incredibly artificial drama designed to emotionally exploit audiences into caring about its characters.