Starring: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Grace Delaney, Lee Braithwaite
Distributor: StudioCanal
Runtime: 108 mins. Reviewed in Jan 2025
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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After an unusual encounter, a talented chef and a recent divorcée fall in love and build the home and family they’ve always dreamed of, until a painful truth puts their love story to the test.
We live in time, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, a linear progress. But, in time, we also have the capacity for moving backwards and forwards in our memories.
It is important to note this for this film because rather than the linear progress of a couple meeting, falling in love, having a child, coping with illness, the screenplay moves backwards and forwards, sometimes disconcertingly with the audience having to be alert to appreciate at which period in time the action is taking place. Which means that the experience for the audience is not immersive as a linear exposition would offer, but, rather, a variety of responses as we move backwards and forwards in time for insights and comparisons.
And, with living in time meaning from birth to death, this film is very strong in an unusual and sometimes graphic (but happy) birth sequence as well as a contemplation of illness and death.
The direction by Crowley (Brooklyn, The Goldfinch) gives strong opportunities for performance by the two stars. Tobias (Garfield) meets Almut (Pugh) when she knocks him down in her car – not the most propitious of meetings. In fact, this is very much Pugh’s film. Her strong screen presence has been shown in a range of films – comedies, dramas and even Marvel Universe action movies. She dominates We Live in Time with her personality, her moods, her skills as a chef, her pregnancy and the challenge of the birth, her love for her daughter and then her having to face serious cancer.
Moving backwards and forwards in time, we do have the opportunity to appreciate Almut’s response to her illness in the light of her previous activities, approaches to life. And, while she is fully alive with her husband and child, her skills as a cook, a chef, are significant, propelling her, even as she is sick, to join in the UK team in a chef’s competition in Italy.
The film has a strong female sensibility (though written and directed by men), inviting an empathy with Almut, not always liking her, irritated sometimes with her, but also in admiration of how she deals with life and life challenging situations.
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