There were rumblings last year when darling indie distributor A24 put out into the trades that they were beginning to look into more mainstream, commercial projects. In a little over a decade, they’ve put out some remarkable films, won several Oscars, and have had some shocking box office successes. So when the said they were looking to lean commercial it felt like the bloom had finally come off the rose. Most small studios don’t have this long of a run in them, it was a miracle that they hadn’t sold out sooner. Cut to a year later and these supposed commercial plays have been Alex Garland’s Civil War (an imperfect but jarring alt history thriller), and John Crowley’s We Live in Time, a British weepy starring two very good (and very famous) young movie stars that is frank about sex, intimacy, commitment, and (of course) mortality.
The script is by Nick Payne, a Tony-nominated playwright, whose few film and television credits speak mostly toward prestige and literary adaptation. We Live in Time feels like his most independent cinematic venture. The story – several years in the lives of two people who fall in love and have a daughter – is cozy and charming in a way that can only end in classically British tragedy. Think Love Story if composed by a much less deranged Richard Curtis. The film lulls you into a false sense of security by telling you the ending very early on. You feel prepared but are, as you’ll see, not prepared for the way the ensuing story will fill in the gaps and provide proper agonizing context to the sadness we’ll eventually confront. This is pretty generic stuff, but I must confess that it’s the kind of generic stuff that I fall for every time.
In order for this kind of movie to work, you need two overqualified actors to bring the requisite charisma to the parts. In comes Andre Garfield, a devastatingly handsome actor capable of astonishing sensitivity and vulnerability who has the ability to spark chemistry with nearly any co-star. Secondly, we have Florence Pugh, a remarkable talent who looks like a middle schooler but has the voice of a chain smoker; the combination has allowed her a flexibility to play pretty much any age between teenager and late 30s. They’re both the kind of talent that would make any project interesting, but hearing they’ll work together in a romance makes one hope for the impossible. Can we have an R-rated romance for a mainstream adult audience? We Live in Time delivers this so well, and I’m just hoping that the audience still exists for it.
Garfield plays Tobias, a representative for the popular British cereal and biscuit company Weetabix (one of those details that you realize is going to kill in the UK, but as an American you just nod, half-understanding). While buying a pen to finally sign his divorce papers, he gets hit by a car driven by Almut (Pugh). He wakes up in the hospital with a neck brase, an arm cast, and several bruises. Almut is there to meet him when he regains consciousness. This meet cute may not score points for believablity but it is strikingly original, and is probably the first moment when you suspend logic to lean into the “reality” that Crowley and Payne are creating here. Almut is a chef and offers Tobias a free meal as an apology. When he tells her that he’s finalizing his divorce, they immediately jump into bed with one another, beginning a steady, but passionate romance that lasts years.
Payne’s script covers the usual ups and downs: the spark of early romance, the pains of dishonesties big and small, the hurtful betrayals that can only come from unguarded love. He’s older and is possibly looking to start a family. She’s career oriented and weary of romantic labels. Both parties sacrifice and create compromises, as they continue to realize how much they value each other. Almut gives birth to a daughter (in a scene that both captures the movie’s allure and its insanity), and competes in an international chef competition. Tobias stays committed, is a focused and attentive father. He allows Almut to prioritize her restaurant and her place in the food community. But then Almut gets ovarian cancer. It’s actually a reoccurrence, and this time the diagnosis is much more bleak.
As I said, we learn about the cancer pretty early in the movie. Like another UK movie out this month, The Outrun, We Live in Time jumbles the chronology of it’s story in an attempt to distract us from how predictable this story is. So we end up jumping between Almut’s chemotherapy trials with their first conversation at the hospital to their time spent with Ella to Almut at her restaurant, etc. Payne is clever in the way he uses obvious devices (perhaps the best way to measure a writer’s talent is the skill with which they paper over their shortcomings), but director John Crowley smartly observes that the film’s power has to come from his two stars. And while Payne’s script will often become more high concept than it needs to be, Crowley keeps the performances grounded, giving the story’s intimacy a real lived-in quality.
Pugh and Garfield’s resumes have success in both arthouse and commercial vehicles. They’ve both gotten paychecks from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it hasn’t completely swallowed them up. This feels like the first time that either of them has attempted to open a film with specific material prospects; that the financial success of a movie really falls on their star potential (unless we count the trainwreck Don’t Worry Darling, a bad Pugh movie that nonetheless was a sizable hit). The good news: they’ve done their jobs which is giving performances so undeniably charming and heartbreaking, that the tackiness of the material totally falls away. It used to be much more commonplace for an actor to have to elevate the material – that’s essentially what a movie star was – but Crowley gives his actors much steadier ground here, and they knock it out of the park.
As Almut, Pugh gets some very high-profile moments. Almut’s rebellious streak and occasional volatility plays into her strengths. The role is a weepy one, a kind of part that could be an anchor for someone who can’t straddle the film’s narrow line between comedy and tragedy, but Pugh really does nail it, delivering her already well-know maturity to a character several years older than her. Across from her, Garfield is giving a performance of immense generosity, a place where he often excels. It’s not often you see an actor so young willing to give space for their scene partner, but Garfield is consistently willing to be a second banana. He’s become so good at it, in fact, that he often steals scenes despite his own restraint. A cheeky press tour has shown that the two already have wonderful chemistry, and it burns up the screen here.
I’m a complete sucker for this kind of movie. It’s much easier for me to forgive a film’s misdeeds when they put this much effort toward assuaging my emotions. The early set up makes you think you’re smarter than the film, makes you wonder how they’ll ever get you to tear up when it gives you the devastating news so early on. That We Live in Time then becomes a movie about how it’s the totality of one’s life that really provides the fuel of our sorrow is a testament to it. It’s observations aren’t anything particularly special, but they do speak to certain realities of life. Mainly, that commitment can be a series of small humiliations, but that the scales eventually balance to your favor. It’s effective for what it’s wants to be, but Pugh and Garfield’s performances are better than they have any right to be.
Directed by John Crowley