@Courtesy of A24
Five years after the forgettable The Goldfinch starring Ansel Elgort and Nicole Kidman, the Irish director John Crowley is back with a feature film that is definitely among his best, if not the best.
We Live in Time tells the story of Tobias (Andrew Garfield) and Almut (Florence Pugh). While they are trying to go through their lives at their best, raising their daughter Ella and trying to improve their career, she finds out that the cancer she’s been fighting for years is back. The new treatment will be long, stressful, and with little chance of success. What about enjoying every possible experience over the next months instead of pain, sadness, and uncertainty? This is the incredibly difficult decision that Tobias and Almut have to take…
The last thing that one would expect when watching a movie about love and disease, is laughing. Actually, laughing a lot. And still, exactly this happens with We Live in Time. The screenplay written by Nick Payne is the (almost) perfect vehicle to show the truth of two characters who live an absolutely normal life, with all the daily little accidents, intangibles, and situations that in the end can be at least funny. When the drama explodes, it is also the editing that helps in a consistent way to keep the tone light, but never shallow.
@Courtesy of A24
This way a pretty ordinary love story becomes an endearing puzzle that explains with coherence and emotional depth the complicated journey Tobias and Almut go through together, making in the end understandable their psychologies and consequently their choices. There is a little bit of rhetoric at the very end, but it is basically impossible to avoid it when difficult stories like this are handled. John Crowley puts everything together giving the story the right time to develop its internal pace and the necessary atmosphere in order to make the movie never melodramatic but always touching.
There are a lot of emotional scenes in We Live in Time, especially in the second half, but they have been treated with a stunning amount of realism, showing the struggle of the characters not to succumb to the pain and frustration, especially for their daughter. What actually gets stuck in the viewer’s memory is the respect, the delicacy, the unspoken love Tobias and Almut give each other, with the man, in particular, learning little by little how to deal with a woman facing not only a disease but the way she wants to live it.
If We Live in Time is a delicate but strong love story it’s because of Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield’s performances. She is admirable in showing both the strong sides and the stubborn pride of a woman who used to navigate issues by herself, and all of a sudden has to think about relating to a man first, and a daughter then. Garfield is surprising and admirable in his construction of a goofy, clumsy, totally ordinary man, who gradually understands the challenge of being next to a brave and complicated woman. The protagonists have understood perfectly that the story isn’t much about facing disease more than it’s about learning how to listen to each other. And this is the plus value of the movie.
Get ready to cry watching We Live in Time, especially because it is indeed a movie that doesn’t want to make you feel sorry for Almut and Tobias. Sequence after sequence, tear after tear, laughter after laughter you will know them better, you will discover their flaws and their strength, and most importantly you will see before your eyes how they’ve been able to build a relationship based on understanding and freedom as much as on love.
@Courtesy of A24
Rate: B+
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Here’s the trailer for the We Live in Time: