Last week I went to catch John Crowley’s We Live in Time. It was me and one other person seated far enough away from me that it felt like I had the screening to myself. I wonder if that other person felt the same way. I thought it was a perfect setup for a movie like We Live in TIme, a nakedly emotional affair engineered to reduce viewers to weepy messes. I’ve never been great about letting myself get emotional out in public, so this was a great opportunity to let my guard down, feel my feelings and go with the movie.
Then a curious thing happened. I walked out of the movie more frustrated than anything else. I’ve spent the better part of a week sorting out why the movie only worked for me in fits and starts.
We Live in TIme is about the relationship between Tobias (Andrew Garfield) and Almut (Florence Pugh). The device that drives the plot is Almut’s ovarian cancer and her bleak prognosis. Right off the bat we learn that Almut would rather live out her remaining time as best she can rather than endure more chemotherapy and other treatments that will only delay the inevitable. We’re primed from the start that this story isn’t going to have a happy ending.
Nick Payne’s script chops up the timeline of their relationship so that we’re constantly moving back and forth through Almut and Tobias’ relationship. That includes a whimsical, cartoonish meet-cute and charts their courtship and blossoming love. With actors as talented as Pugh and Garfield, it’s easy to fall under the spell of their chemistry. When the movie is really working it’s striking that perfect balance between a universal experience (falling in love) and a singular one (these two specific people falling in love). I keep coming back to the scenes where we see Tobias and Almut nervously expressing (or failing to express) their feelings for each other and being on the same page. It’s the clumsiness and excitement of love, that willingness to put yourself out there because the reward of what’s to come is too great to pass up. Compare that to scenes from later in their relationship where that clumsiness comes up again. Only now the excitement is replaced with dread of what’s to come. This is the film at its most emotionally honest and relatable.
For all the film’s attempts to tug at the heartstrings, the only moment that really got me is the scene where Almut gives birth in a gas station after her and Tobias get caught in a traffic jam on their way to the hospital. I watched the movie on my son’s 9th birthday, so I was already in a reflective mood. But Crowley got from me what he’s been chasing the whole time. But, that was the only time. The problem, for me, is that the movie’s attempts to heighten the story, to make it more of a movie, bring in just enough artifice that I felt like I was being kept at arm’s distance rather than enveloped for a hug.
In its quest to be an emotional wrecking ball, We Live In Time comes off manipulative in the wrong way. Crowley and Payne guide the audience toward every emotion rather than leaving enough room for viewers to get there on their own. That’s the note the film ends on and it’s one of the scenes I’ve come back to the most. I’ll be vague with the details. We know how this story ends from the start, specifically Almut’s fate. When the time comes for that scene Crowley and Payne go for artsy, metaphorical imagery that feels too saccharine for the moment. The movie is at its best when it’s being direct, but in this last moment it goes for something that robs the story of its weight. It comes across as the movie pulling the punch its been setting up for two hours. That’s such a nebulous distinction and nearly impossible to quantify. I’ve talked to friends who were completely transfixed by the movie and under its spell from beginning to end. I can see it. That’s the experience I wanted to have.
