We Live in Time (France and UK, 2024)
Original title: We Live In Time
Director: John Crowley
Writer/Screenplay: Nick Payne
Main cast: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Grace Delaney, Lee Braithwaite, Aoife Hinds, Adam Jones, Douglas Hodge and Amy Morgan
Runtime: 107 minutes (1°47’)
This year, A24 was at the festival with films of the most varied genres, and a beautiful dramatic romance could not be left out. With a star-studded director and cast, We Live in Time manages to fill this space completely.
The feature film presents us with the story of the couple Tobias (Andrew Garfield) and Almut (Florence Pugh) told in a non-chronological order, as if we were looking at some of their memories. In the first few minutes, this even creates a feeling that perhaps we are encountering some science fiction concept, but it soon becomes clear that we are simply jumping through time as one person would remember another, with present and past mixing together to tell a story.
It’s not a spoiler to know that Almut goes through cancer throughout the film, as this is both in the trailer and in the first few minutes of the film – and this is not even the most information about the film that the trailer gives. But once we understand this, we also understand the title and what the basis of the film’s narrative will be, which is the finiteness of time that people have, and even more so how to take advantage of this finiteness when we know that our time may not be as long as possible. This could turn into a melodrama in a single page of the script, but fortunately the writing and directing duo get it right when dealing with the tone of the plot.
We meet the couple at different moments in their existence, without knowing exactly where in time this event is located, with our biggest clues being conveyed through the art direction. Small changes in styles and spaces, Almut’s bangs that come and go, everything’s there to remind us that we’re seeing everything in a somewhat mixed way, between the first meeting, the first fight, pregnancy, birth, and everything that may be in between. And this is captured in a sensitive and attentive way by a camera that’s always present, but that never seems invasive of the couple’s intimacy. In times when we follow many people’s lives through reality shows, this film has no intention of appearing to be just unpretentiously capturing them, but rather a beautiful game that places the audience as part of these remarkable events. There’s a photogenic quality to the entire work that facilitates the process of enchantment with the life that the film proposes.
With an incredible performance by Garfield and Pugh, it’s impossible not to feel touched by the way in which one sees this relationship evolving and changing. In yet another film in which one gets the feeling that the characters have undergone therapy, one feels that we are experiencing a new wave of romance films where the couple loves and respects each other, choosing to go through life’s difficulties together instead of something closer to classic romances in which the relationship needed to be tested and survive the test of time. A clear reflection of the changing times, this is a film that will clearly appeal more to millennials than any other age group.
But it’s a very happy event that new stories are being told, especially with the delicacy that this one presents to convey a difficult, but positive, message about life. Without great image artifices, but with a good script and excellent performances, it’s impossible to leave the film without feeling touched by some of its remarkable moments.
