The precious life lessons of We Live in Time

Everything that was said about We Live in Time right after the preview screening at the Toronto International Film Festival was about how it would open our tear ducts and that a plumber would be needed to close them again. Indeed, the film starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, directed by John Crowley of Brooklyn and The Goldfinch, has all the potential to be a chocolate and Kleenex movie, but perhaps the thing that works best, and that pleasantly surprises, is that crying during the viewing isn't necessary. Perhaps not doing so is even better, but we leave that up to the viewer's desire to shed tears in that moment—or, also, if the film hits a nerve. Not that the work doesn’t try hard enough, but the aspect that absolutely should not be overlooked and that makes the film quite enjoyable despite the drama of the plot—he and she meet, he and she fall in love, she has cancer and he stands by her side—is a marked irony that is so well-acted that it makes the illness, if not secondary, at least a step below. The story of two opposites who meet, who have an absurd chemistry, and who are lovely to watch as they form their family. And the cancer, lingering in the background, is just one of the parts concerning their life, not the only one.

It certainly isn't for Pugh's character Almut, who is wonderful to see in the kitchen on the big screen after the web episodes of Cooking with Flo, and whom we hope to see again in a white apron shouting “yes, chef!” perhaps in something less tragic (why hasn't anyone asked her to do a cameo in The Bear? Madness). Head chef, restaurateur, former ice skater, and loving mother and partner, the woman diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer decides that, for the time she has left, the illness will not define her, but rather how she chooses to live those final months. That she will not leave her daughter Ella and partner Tobias with the memory of a woman bent over herself, afflicted by pain and therapy, but will spend the last chapter of her life making it special for herself and those around her. From such a vital push, with a screenplay by Nick Payne, We Live in Time builds a narrative across three timelines alternating between the meeting, the wait for a child, and the onset of the illness. A tripartition that amplifies the concept of memory that Almut clings to, with the film showing us the present of her family while flashing back to reveal the first meeting between her and Tobias (the most improbable car accident scene you'll see in 2024), the search for a child up to the moment of birth (the most absurd bathroom scene you'll see in 2024, and it's not The Substance), arriving at a present that must not be worth less than the years gone by, but should instead be an invitation to “the six, seven, eight, maybe nine most incredible months of our life.”

Thus, We Live in Time creates the love story and moves it back and forth along the narrative timeline of the protagonists, marked by changes in hair, bangs, and more or less pronounced makeup to show how people change over the years, but also how chemistry is an innate process, and it certainly is for its protagonists. Pugh and Garfield are perfect together, supporting each other like a couple, laughing like a couple, and in their eyes, they plan a future together like a beautiful, loving, fun couple—and thank goodness the actress wasn’t paired with another Harry Styles like in Don't Worry Darling. Their duo's irony is an active part of the action, with the work dedicating entire comedy scenes to humor, and if for a second it makes us forget that we're watching a drama, the emphatic soundtrack is always there to remind us. We Live in Time is a story about how memory is what can bear witness to our time on earth. That quality trumps quantity, maybe even more so, and that it is hidden in moments together, in plans made as a pair, in the unexpected twists we may encounter, even when someone is no longer there. In small things, in a notebook where we record our conversations, or in the best technique for breaking an egg. A film that will likely make you feel bad, but only for a little while. After all, Crowley, Pugh, and Garfield preferred our laughter, the things worth living and remembering.