We Live in Time
Once again Florence Pugh is mesmerising in a touching, devastating non-linear story of love, life and the whole damned thing.
Temporal tumult: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.
Image courtesy of StudioCanal.
Life is a messy, wonderful, unpredictable, tumultuous, primal business. As we live it, we experience a roughly linear trajectory, but as we look back we experience a jumble of highs and lows, emotional snapshots of drama, tragedy and joy. What is presented in John Crowley’s rivetingly poignant film is an explosion of key moments that most of us have come in close contact with: love, divorce, pregnancy, birth, illness, success, failure and that one indefinable moment that is uniquely ours. Why We Live in Time works so well is because of the dynamic chemistry between Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, who tug us along on their bumpy, providential journey through life.
When we first see Almut Brühl (Pugh), she is jogging along a country lane on a typically grey, dank English morning. But there are treasures to be found in the hedgerows and as she selects certain wild flowers from the rest, there is purpose in her foraging. Back home, with eggs fresh from the chicken coop, Almut rustles up a whipped dish that she dubs ‘Douglas fir parfait’ and which she presents to the sleeping form of Andrew Garfield in bed. The shorthand between these two love birds is instant and endearing, but moments later the dynamic has changed and, reading from his omnipresent notebook, Tobias Durand (Garfield) enquires, “mucus plugs?” To which Almut replies, “who are you?” Their story is one of intimacy and affinity but it doesn’t start, or even end, there. Further on, there is the meet-cute moment in hospital, when Almut introduces herself to a neck-braced Tobias as the woman who ran him over in her car.
The attention to detail, the pauses, the sudden gear changes in tone, keep us on our toes as we try to sort out where and when and how these two appealing people fit together – she a high-class chef of Alpine-Bavarian cuisine, he a bigwig in the corporate world of Weetabix. It is Florence Pugh, though, who drives the emotional engine of the film – one cannot keep one’s eyes off her, waiting for her next reaction, her throaty laugh, the fire in her pupils, a disapproving downturn of the mouth. When she is off screen, Andrew Garfield, although so sweet and vulnerable and sensitive, is no match for the spotlight.
John Crowley, who brought us Intermission (2003), Boy A (with Garfield) and Brooklyn (2015), has secured strong performances from everyone, from Lucy Briers as a doctor with bad news (“It’s OK not to be OK”) to Douglas Hodge as Tobias’s best friend. Crowley is also an excellent arbiter of tone, cutting from a scene at the precise moment it needs to end, aided by Bryce Dessner’s sensitive score. If one wanted to nitpick, one could say that Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield were perhaps too preternaturally, absurdly attractive, whose arguments are resolved with indecent speed and decency (they seldom seem to say what they don’t mean). But the specifics persist in making We Live in Time real: whether it’s the tireless quest of Tobias to find a workable writing implement to sign his divorce papers, or Almut finding the perfect perch for a Jaffa cake in the bath: on the hillock of her pregnant stomach. The film is likely to appeal more to those who recognise the mileposts of adult life, but the moments that resonate strongest cannot help but touch even the hardest heart.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Douglas Hodge, Niamh Cusack, Grace Delaney, Lee Braithwaite, Aoife Hinds, Adam James, Amy Morgan, Lucy Briers, Nikhil Parmar, Kerry Godliman.
Dir John Crowley, Pro Adam Ackland, Leah Clarke and Guy Heeley, Ex Pro Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Battsek, Screenplay Nick Payne, Ph Stuart Bentley, Pro Des Alice Normington, Ed Justine Wright, Music Bryce Dessner, Costumes Liza Bracey, Sound Arthur Graley.
Film4/SunnyMarch/Shoebox Films-StudioCanal.
107 mins. UK/France. 2024. US Rel: 18 October 2024. UK Rel: 1 January 2025. Cert. 15.
