In the Moment
Spider-Man and Yelena Belova elevate Squishy-centred John Crowley’s old school romance. Tissues optional.
We Live in Time
Director: John Crowley • Writer: Nick Payne
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh
UK • 1hr 48mins
Opens Hong Kong Jan 9 • IIB
Grade: B
Don’t get me wrong. This movie is utter dog shit without Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh making cringe-worthy dialogue like “There’s a distinct possibility that I may be about to fall in love with you.” Or whatever the barfy line was. People just don’t talk like that anywhere but in the movies, and it’s a massive, massive credit to Garfield that he lands it. It helps that in the reverse shot to Pugh in the wake of this crime against language her reaction is so stoically perfect it stays on its feet.
We Live in Time is an old-fashioned, decade-spanning, epic romance in which two very pretty, very white, ideally matched people meet under completely ridiculous circumstances – budding Bavarian fusion chef Almut (Pugh) hits freshly divorced, heartbroken Weetabix exec Tobias (Garfield) with her Mini Cooper and somehow doesn’t get sued – and embark on a love story for the ages. Director John Crowley started his career in theatre, but he made a splash behind the camera on Brooklyn, the Saoirse Ronan-starring immigrant romantic drama that took the time to make the Irish suitor not a drunk, and to make the Italian-American competitor not a wife beater. Fancy that. Playwright-turned-screenwriter Nick Payne is a nice match for Crowley. His Netflix romance The Last Letter from Your Lover played with time on a structural level like this does, and Payne’s theatre origins show too; watching We Live in Time it’s easy to imagine the stage lights going down between key passages and spots coming up at key decisions like a classic two-hander. But it still doesn’t work without Pugh’s singular prickly, no-time-for-dullards persona and Garfield’s innate nice-guy (but not The Lesser Canadian Ryan, Reynolds’ practised) charm. If ever movie stars saved the day, it’s in We Live in Time.
Also helping We Live in Time along is its simple non-linear solution. A little too muddly at times? Sure, but by starting the grand romance at its end – we meet Tobias and Almut in a doctor’s clinic where they’re discussing her second cancer treatment plan – Crowley and Payne manage to steer clear of (extra) manipulative standard patterns: meet cutes, fast building lust, slow building love, commitment, kids, shocking diagnoses, early stages hopeful chemo, late stages resignation to the tragically inevitable. Instead of cranking up the waterworks-bait incrementally, we enter their story braced for Tobias and Almut’s prematurely sad fate. And as such, we’re able to sit back and get a clearer picture of who they are, why they click, and why their doomed romance is extra-unfair. We’re not distracted by the destination so the trip is richer. We like them, and we’re sorry this happens to them.
But, let’s go back to Garfield and Pugh for a minute. Movies like We Live in Time are (personally) dog shit because of their heightened nonsense, made even more nonsensical because of the casual way the material is treated. The best sci-fi, horror and fantasy works because everyone’s taking the material seriously. Because Garfield and Pugh don’t talk down to their characters, they’ve created a comfortable dynamic between Tobias and Almut that makes them feel authentic. Yeah, they’re painfully modern (the bathtub scene is a killer) and possibly a little too adult in articulating Deep Feelings, but their arguments are recognisable. She jumps down his throat for mentioning children she’s not sure she wants – “Fuck you, I’m 35!” – and he’s right to be offended for trying to forestall disaster (the gawdawful “I might be in love with you” moment). They’re clumsy and real and it gives the story stakes. Bonus: She doesn’t suck at life.
But for all the misery Tobias and Almut are subjected to, they put up with it because they were happy together. There’s a fair amount of levity in Time, with the couple’s most memorable moments juiced by some extraneous, low-key comedy for lack of a better word. Almut’s kitchen experiments are a delight, and Tobias’s car crash confusion is endearing in that Andrew Garfield way (though Garfield’s more fun when he’s smashing laptops and sniping, “Lawyer up, asshole.”). It’s hard not to enjoy gas station attendants Sanjay and Jane’s (Nikhil Parmar and Kerry Godliman) stiff-upper-lipped childbirth assists. And not to tell another writer how to do their job but Payne missed a prime Weetabix gifting joke op with Almut’s Weetabix obsessed friends meeting Tobias. I still don’t like these movies, but as these movies go, We Live in Time is a good one. And if you do like these what can I say. Grab the tissues.