Ever since the release of the romantic melodrama “The Notebook,” the genre skyrocketed in popularity, but many died down thanks to the ensuing books by Nicholas Sparks and countless pseudo copies. In this context, watching the new movie from John Crowley, titled We Live In Time and featured at Toronto International Film Festival, it struck me how it had some sort of admiration for doomed love due to its portrayal, yet it was simply something so charismatic that we haven’t seen for a while. One week. Maybe two. It’s a crazy world. But it’s a world where in the wake of cynicism still exist deeply earnest, painful movies that are both manipulative but enjoyable at the same time. (The Life of Chuck, directed by Mike Flanagan, is another film, which I shall also analyze separately. In short: it is very good.) It is about a film being quite self aware at how shameless it is in emotional marketing whilst displaying exceptional talent to support it and not seem cheap. This isn’t the case. We have Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh in the lead roles.
Another aspect is the intentionally dysfunctional narrative. It begins with the terminal cancer diagnosis of Pugh’s character Almut who argues with her spouse Tobias (played by Garfield) while having to make an impossible choice; go through terrible life for half a year or undergo a year of awful chemotherapy that doesn’t guarantee any success. From here, the text by Nick Payne jumps all over in the partnership of them with apparently unfolding on four timelines. We skip to the days and months after Almut’s cancer came back on multiple occasions, in which the professional cook seeks to fulfill a personal goal of entering into a cooking contest, one she conceals from Tobias, realizing that she would not want to add more stress either physically or mentally on her.
In We Live in Time, flashbacks reveal the early period of Tobias and Almut’s relationship when Almut, the first time they met, ran him over with her car. This one sort of bleeds in with this little montage sequence where we find out that Almut already suffered from cancer once, which required the fairly young couple to come to terms with the fact that they will probably not be parents. It is known that they did because we still see plenty of a quite pregnant Almut and soon enough this leads to one of the most impressive birth sequences in a feature film for quite some time.
Some people may not be comfortable with flicks that flash back and forth in time. There has been hardly any direction in terms of when and where to place the title cards or picture cues for Almut’s bald head and pregnant belly depicting two stages of her physical degradation, according to Crowley and his editor Justine Wright. Indeed, the narratives do appear to jump around quite a bit but it’s possible to discern an internal consistency that supports the chronology, like plotting the major events of one’s existence near the end of their life. I would like to argue that there may be one or two too odd jumps in the script and i also felt a few times that i would have preferred spending more time with one of the chapters of this couple which happened to be in cut scenes, but all in all, the flowing scripts are probably the perfect balance that glues Oscar nominees to these kind of projects. Day 10 must be different from day 100 and why not day 1000 or even all of the Wentworth ten years later day in a relationship.
Hardcore fans of his and Pugh look forward to that as the best acting class ever. Someone like the star of “Little Women” should do most of the heavy lifting but it is really Garfield that is thick of a fight and worry, sadness and concern, all of which in that face are conveyed beautifully.
The movie is certainly interesting, not merely for how the characters cope with material that often seems contrary to their development, but for how much can be done with the little details of the characters’ performance. Then, of course, there is the built in chemistry and Crowley appropriately embedding their relationship as one of two adults so the current craze of No Sex in Movies has a new focus.
Every so often, one can almost see the knobs being turned on the dials in We Live in Time. It is not many films where the sequence of events involves two instances of being diagnosed with cancer, childbirth, falling in love, and then dying, and it does not feel like they are manipulating the feelings of the viewers. I, however, have a feeling that for the audience this film was made for, it won’t be an issue. There’s a reason this sub-sub genre of ours keeps on getting made. For the lucky ones, we have the love of our lives already. For the rest of us, we are still waiting for the ‘meet cute’ similar to Almut and Tobias the only difference being, hopefully, no car crash involved.
For more movies like We Live in Time on 123Movies.