The idea of a non-linear time-spanning look at a marriage is not new. The absolute pinnacle of the idea still to me is director Stanley Donen’s and writer Fredric Raphael’s wonderfully sophisticated 1967 comedy Two For the Road, in which Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney flip back and forth in the course of their 12-year marriage. It was so ahead of its time, not just with the idea but in the editing technique used throughout. An absolute classic that didn’t get its full due in its day.
Now the latest in this subgenre is We Live In Time, the romantic comedy from director John Crowley (Boy A, Brooklyn) and writer Nick Payne, which attempts to chronicle the decade-old relationship and marriage between Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield). The style isn’t as tricky as Two For the Road’s, but what it undeniably shares in common is a clear chemistry between its leads. If we didn’t believe these two were destined for each other despite marked differences in their personalities, the whole soufflé would fall. It doesn’t, but the fact that Crowley is in charge should guarantee it won’t.
The Payne script darts all over the place in terms of time, using three distinct periods. One lasts several years (their marriage), one lasts six months (her diagnosis of ovarian cancer), and one is just one very memorable day when Almut gave birth to their daughter in a convenience store bathroom hilariously enlisting a couple of employees to help out. Time is also a key theme, especially for this pair, who meet cute in their 30s (they literally crash into each other) and both are a bit overformed and set in their ways, but again the attraction here is like a magnet. It was meant to be.
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So unlike the smaller moments of a marriage as depicted in Two For the Road, this film goes big with the aforementioned baby-birthing scene, and the devastating cancer diagnosis leading to Almut’s head being shaved by husband and young daughter. Both of these are life-changing moments getting lots of time here. And time, however fleeting, but why these two cling to it, and life, is a key component. They are always in one way or another fighting time and fighting to stay together no matter what fate might have in store. Living is important to both, but Almut knows she has precious time to leave lasting memories for her daughter.
Over the course of nearly two hours our head spins as the filmmakers take us all over the map of this union. It is a whirlwind. Tobias is a bit pent up, quiet and pretty much knows who he is and what he wants after a recent divorce. Almut is a polar opposite, a fiercely independent woman who isn’t even sure she wants kids, something that nearly torpedoes this relationship when Tobias declares he does. She isn’t shutting the door, she says, she just doesn’t want to commit. It doesn’t take long for us to dart ahead with scenes of the birth, and their life with their little girl, but then its back again to the beginnings of this relationship, some steamy sex scenes, and some of the funniest stuff comes when Tobias is suddenly hit by a car – guess whose? Almut’s personal quest to win a restaurant chef’s competition is another sidebar we visit frequently in this film.
Through it all in Payne’s sharply written screenplay we add up the individual pieces we are being presented of these two and get a strong picture of them, something that wouldn’t be possible in a more linear structure. I felt a kinship to both and was rooting for them, especially since (and it’s no spoiler alert) we know early on the Almut’s days could be numbered.
None of this works of course without the right key cast and Garfield, who worked 16 years ago with Crowley in Boy A, and Pugh, who seemingly can do just about anything, could not be more appealing and believable. We don’t want to see death do them part, but we also need to accept what Almut wants not for her, but for her daughter. Is time going to take that from her as well? I wish we had more time with both of them in this slender but worthy addition to the rom-com genre, or maybe I should say rom-dram-com since there also a number of powerful dramatic scenes from this marriage in here too.
Producers are Guy Heeley, Adam Ackland and Leah Clarke.
Title: We Live In Time
Festival: Toronto (Special Presentations)
Distributor: A24
Release date: October 11, 2024 (limited)
Director: John Crowley
Screenwriter: Nick Payne
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Heather Cranney, Matt Kennard, Sam Kennard, Laura Guest
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr 48 mins