For someone who believes that, in the grand scheme of things, time moves in a cyclical loop rather than being defined by linearity, a viewing of John Crowley’s We Live in Time marks an ironic end to 2024 at the movies. A film that underscores the finitude of moments available to us as individuals and for the ties that bind us with other living beings on Earth as opposed to the perpetual flow of time in general in the cosmos.
The tagline of the film goes—every moment counts. It is about how time is of the essence for the young couple, Tobias Durand (Andrew Garfield) and Almut Bruhl (Florence Pugh).
Interestingly, Nick Payne’s innovative screenplay plays with time and the element of memory, taking us back and forth through various vignettes of their ten-year-long relationship.
From intimate scenes of cosy domesticity to the exciting, anticipative ones of the upcoming childbirth to the sombre realisation of the inevitability of death and the concomitant bereavement. On the face of it, there is no pattern or logic to the arrangement of these scenes but they stack up well eventually to turn the emotions of the relationship tactile for the audience.
So, to put things in a linear perspective, Tobias, who is out to buy a pen to sign on his divorce papers, gets hit by the car of Almut, a Bavarian fusion chef with a restaurant of her own. They get introduced to each other in the hospital, get attracted over time and eventually move in together.
The relationship hits a rough patch with Almut revealing that kids are not quite her thing, while Tobias has been planning on starting a family with her. After a period of reconciliation comes the bad news, that she has ovarian cancer. She decides to opt for a partial hysterectomy to be able to have a child, goes into remission, gets pregnant, has a girl, only to realise three years later that the cancer has returned.
On the face of it, the film might feel like it would be fodder for some cloying sentimentality. But, Payne and Crowley underline the potentially morbid situations with gentle wit and humour.
The approach of Tobias and Almut to mortality and grief is marked by level-headedness, prudence, wisdom and “note-taking”, which makes the audience connect to them with a deeper sense of warmth and concern. It is buoyed further by remarkably restrained and real performances by Garfield and Pugh, the unspoken intensity of the former poised well against the overflowing energy of the latter.
Like the scene where they wonder how to make the child reconcile with her mom’s departure. Should they get a pet for her to “cope with life’s big stuff”? Should Almut spend the rest of her limited time on Earth going through a highly debilitating treatment or make the most of her time by doing all that she wants to do? Should the life forward be proactive or passive? There’s enormous dignity in accepting things for how they are and admirable respect for each other’s choices, however painful they might be, and Garfield and Pugh do a great job of communicating that.
Most so, for a couple on the brink of loss, having been dealt with unfair blows, it’s wonderful how Tobias and Almut live these big moments.
Far from being hapless and miserable, they seem to be on a perennial adventure together, be it the accident that brings them together, the unusual locale where they bring their daughter Ella to birth, the larger-than-life culinary competition Almut decides to participate in, or the skating rink where she reconnects, metaphorically, with her deceased dad while bidding goodbye to her loved ones.
We Live in Time is not a great film but a charming one nonetheless. A bittersweet romance that makes you smile through the sadness and connect with life via death. In other words, chicken soup for the soul cinema.