DMovies - Your platform for thought-provoking cinema

We Live in Time

Despite the gloomy cancer topic, John Crowley's new creation (featuring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh) remains a very traditional romcom - from the 68th BFI London Film Festival

Almut (Floreance Pugh) is happily married to Tobias (Andrew Garfield). She works as a chef, while he is a corporate employee of Weetabix Cereals (Almut’s co-workers affectionatly nickname him “Mr Weetabix”, in a very peculiar merchandising model). They have a three-year-old daughter, and live comfortably somewhere in Britain. But not all is well. Almut has recurrent cancer, after successfully fending off the disease just before her daughter’s birth. The doctor tells her that she will require at least two courses of chemotherapy and one operation before she can resume her life as normal. But Almut isn’t the type to give up that easily. Despite the horrible aside effects of the treatment (she shaves her head, and constantly vomits), she is determined to take part in a major European baking contest, and to win it.

The first two thirds of the film are structured in chronological zigzag, to satisfactory results. Director John Crawley and scriptwriter Nick Payne provide us viewers with fragments of Almut’s and Tobias’s lives, from the day they met until the second cancer diagnosis. We are then asked to slowly put the puzzle pieces together, and also to fill the gaps. This includes the disastrous accident that led to the chance encounter and inevitable infatuation, the first cancer episode, the pregnancy, the birth, and… the separation! Oh, don’t worry! That’s Tobias’s divorce from his former wife. His relationship with Almut remains mostly intact, despite the many trails and tribulations.

Garfield and Pugh are just as irresistible as you would expect. The actor boasts a deceptively warm in ingenuous smirk, while the eyes of the actress are radiant with humanity and determination. She is the vaguely subversive character, and the one who wears the trousers. She nearly rips Tobias to shreds at the suggestion that they should have a child soon, lest her body clock starts ticking. Until cancer forces her to rethink her timeline and her priorities. Lee Braithwaite delivers the movie’s most quietly potent performance, as Almut devoted assistant and commis chef.

This 104-minute British contains the most familiar romcom ingredients. Two conventionally good-looking and widely recognisable leads, two and flat morally sound – if vaguely fallible – protagonists, minor arguments with abundant self-deprecation and snide comments, a string of clumsy events (such as a birth from hell at the local petrol station), a pervasive piano score, highly sanitised lovemaking, the conventional meet cute (a first meet under very awkward circumstances), an uplifting and crowd-pleasing denouement, and an easily digestible adage (something to the effect: “fight and you shall win”). The cancer topic is a mere substitute for the more classic conflict (such as a nasty family, a class divide, or an extra-marital affair). As with most romcoms, don’t expect a major effort at realism (the chemo version of Almut is notably unconvincing).

This is a very familiar cinematic formula. We Live in Time is a traditional film dish infused with saccharine, and with a few bitter notes. A pleasant enough combination of flavours, just not one that will remain imprinted in your culinary memory for very long.

We Live in Time was Closing Gala film of the 72nd San Sebastian International Film Festival (when this piece was originally written). The UK premiere takes place in October, at the BFI London Film Festival.


By Victor Fraga - 28-09-2024

Victor Fraga is a Brazilian born and London-based journalist and filmmaker with more than 20 years of involvement in the cinema industry and beyond. He is an LGBT writer, and describes himself as a di...

DMovies Poll

Are the Oscars dirty enough for DMovies?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Most Read

Just a few years back, finding a film [Read More...]
Sexual diversity is at the very heart of [Read More...]
Forget Friday the 13th, Paranormal Activity and the [Read More...]
A lot of British people would rather forget [Read More...]
Pigs might fly. And so Brexit might happen. [Read More...]
QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN A candidate’s [Read More...]

Read More

Last Swim

Sasha Nathwani
2024

Ibrahim Azam - 11-10-2024

In his feature-length debut, Sasha Nathwani brings us a poignant and reflective coming-of-age tale set against the hectic backdrop of central London - from the 68th BFI London Film Festival [Read More...]

Nickel Boys

RaMell Ross
2024

Daniel Theophanous - 10-10-2024

Two African Americans sent to a brutal juvenile institution see their dreams and aspirations destroyed, in this hypnotic yet uneven drama - from the 68th BFI London Film Festival [Read More...]

Our dirty questions to Llaima Sanfiorenzo

 

Joshua Polanski - 08-10-2024

Joshua Polanski interviews the director of And Still The Seed, a "decidedly anti-colonial" film about the bond between trees and people; they talk about Llaima's native Puerto Rico, trees older than Christopher Columbus, non-human life as film protagonists, and much more! [Read More...]